Originally Posted by
MaxPowers
Boogie-
AirTran has at least 400 Captains who are junior to SWA FO's. Some of them have been Captains for 5 or 6 years. When you're combining two healthy (nonshrinking) carriers, you don't take a guy out of his seat he's been in for years and give it to an FO at the other airline, that is a "windfall".
If you start displacing guys from the 717, which would happen in your scenario, you're talking about potentially 3 or 4 training events caused by each displaced Captain. A displaced 737 Captain could hold 717, so he bids 717. A displaced 717 Captain becomes a 737 FO. A SWA 737 FO becomes a 717 Capt, etc. Those 400 displacements could trigger a thousand training events, lasting 6 weeks each . . . . Ouch!
Also, If an AirTran Captain is displaced, he is now not receiving SWA Captain pay. Are you going to pay protect him for the difference? No? Going to pay him AAI Captain pay? That is more than SWA FO pay, so are the SWA FO's going to be mad that he is making more per hour than they are? Should they all get raises to AAI Captain pay? How do you even that up?
The above is probably why "no bump, no flush" is pretty standard, along with fences. The AirTran Captains will probably remain in their seats and bases unless they bid out of them.
Take a look at the pay tables on this website. Even if you (generously) use the new AAI pay (which is irrelevant after the snapshot date), a 6 year captain at AAI will come out ahead in more than 1 way as a 6 year FO at SWA.
Using the calculator on this site - a 6 year AAI captain is guaranteed 70x136=$9520 /mo. That is $114,240/ yr. A 6 year FO at SWA is guaranteed 78x132=$10,296 /mo. That is $123,552 /yr. If you only used 70 hrs/mo. for the SWA F/O, it would still be within about $300 /mo. (peanuts) but that wouldn't be accurate. In addition to earning an extra $9312 guaranteed $$'s per year, a 6 year AAI capt (now a 6 year SWA F/O) gains... 1) a much better schedule 2) more domiciles than they currently have to chose from 3) better company 4) better medical benefits 5) an extra week of vacation (I could be off on this but I think SWA gives an extra week of vacation). I would like to see how the discretionary flying compares between SWA and AAI as well.
If a junior AAI captain were to keep their seat they would earn a guarantee of $15,366 /mo. or $184,392 /yr. That is a GAIN of $70,152 /yr in addition to #'s 2,3,4, and possibly 5 above at a minimum. Of course we want to keep our seat position...because we all want to save the company some money - right?