Originally Posted by
Riddler
So it's still 2 pilot groups operating in their original domiciles with their original equipment, but they happen to use the same callsign and have the same contract? What happens if Smisek moves A320s to EWR or 787s to ORD?
No, the way it was explained to me is that there is one pilot group operating on one list and all bases/aircraft/etc. are open for bid with no fences or restrictions.
The interesting point was that after the SLI based on current percentages that the resulting numbers were "owned" by the pre-merger groups. A UA retirement would leapfrog UA pilots up the list over CO pilots and a CO retirement would leapfrog CO pilots up the list over UA pilots.
The result was people keep relative seniority today but not suffer from age related retirement logjams down the road. You maintain your current position on the merged list today but retire in the same percentage of the overall list as you would expect to if there had never been a merger.
I don't know if would work but it's something my NW buddies mentioned was being thrown around since Delta had just done a big buyout of senior pilots and they had a much younger pilot group.