Originally Posted by All Bizniz

Our AS brothers should be grateful about the VX acquisition as without it, with the competitive onslaught they've been facing and with more to come, they themselves ran the risk of being acquired down the road.

AS management are not fools, they saw the signs and after analyzing everything, they decided that buying VX at all cost was the best option to take.

You are welcome.

Originally Posted by 2loud

Y'all got a huge windfall and jackpot, all rolled up in one! Branson and the BOD decided to sell VX because it couldn't turn a profit. The big three had zero interest in dancing with VX. Six or so airbuses with the rest leased and just a few gates in SFO, LAX, and JFK is less than ideal even for a start up airline. Thank your lucky stars that jetBlue wanted to dance with y'all which forced Alaskan to show up to the trailer park pool party. jetBlue couldn't hang so they had to leave the party and Alaskan got suckered into hooking up with the undesirable date. Had jetBlue not started a bidding war y'all would have been acquired by an investment company and gone the way of Aloha or best case, doing the limbo dance with Frontier. Let's not kid yourselves.

Y'all talk about getting a contract had VX stayed independent is beyond naive. jetBlue has been in negotiations for how long now? VX pilot group didn't even have a contract/baseline and being unprofitable as VX was, your pilot group would have been in negotiations for a very long time and eventually would have bled out. Do y'all think that you could have scored a 43%/37%+ pay raise on your own? How about a 15% 401K? Most definitely not. Just look at the likes of jetBlue or better yet Spirit, a profitable airline with a much superior business model than VX, who not too long ago settled on a contract. Could Alaskan have scored the current arbitrated pay raise on its own without too much effort? You betcha. Was it not the arbitrator who awarded the pay rates in the JCBA? If anything, the awarded pay rates were lower than what Alaskan could have gotten in arbitration had VX not been a part of the equation. The bottom line is, VX piggy backed on Alaskan and got a huge windfall.

When the SLI is finalized, the VX pilot group will once again get a huge windfall and Alaskan boys 'n girls will be left holding the bag. It's common knowledge that VX wasn't a career airline and Alaskan may not appear to be very attractive in its current form mainly due to less than desirable schedules and work rules but it offers a far better career than VX ever could.

Originally Posted by 2loud

If anything, the awarded pay rates were lower than what Alaskan could have gotten in arbitration had VX not been a part of the equation. The bottom line is, VX piggy backed on Alaskan and got a huge windfall.

Originally Posted by AJ Crowley

That is funny! It looks like you didn't read the actual arbitration award. Specifically the part were the arbitrators point out that the awarded pay rate below our peers was due to the Alaska pilot group's history of accepting 80% of what our peers accept going back to the 90s.

Originally Posted by AJ Crowley

Virgin was profitable from 2013 on, and made their investors a truck load of money BEFORE the sale. The BOD sold because they received offers from two airlines at a substantial premium over the going stock price. that is the only reason.

Originally Posted by Work4life

Which cave did you just crawl out of? Wow, you make the rest of Virgin pilots look like a bunch of idiots! You shoot from the hip and speak out of your sphincter. Truck load of money....seriously? Are you referring to a Tonka tuck? "Virgin was unprofitable for much of its short history, just breaking even in 2013 and lagging at the bottom of the industry in profit margins in its final three years of existence". This is straight from the legal experts.
Your CEO and his board bailed on you....hand grips raise, triggers squeeze. I know it must hurt but get over it.

Originally Posted by KnockKnock

This thread reminds me of Itchy and Scratchy. They fight, they bite,: they bite and fight and bite, bite bite bite, fight fight fight, the Alaska and Virgin Shooooowww......you know you just read that to the music

Originally Posted by All Bizniz

C'mon man. Up your game and stop embarrassing yourself and your brothers. I am sure that there are AS pilots on this forum who can articulate their points for or against a position without sounding so juvenile and petty with the personal attacks and insults. You're taking this thing way to personal my friend. Lol

At the end of the day there's nothing you or I can do about the SLI in September and a bunch of other things for that matter.......