I have a dog in the fight.. To be honest I was hired at a very young age at AS. My seniority would have left me #1 at AS for almost three years. Now who knows. To be honest, I don't really care all that much. I am already a CA and really hope from this merger we all get one thing and that is paid $$$. I do honestly look at it and feel like VA guys and gals are getting a windfall in Pay, Retirement, Vacation, Medical, Stability, and Sick leave. I guess as an AS pilot all I will achieve is a raise and that I would have received anyways, just a little further down the road. (and yes VA pilots would also have received a raise on their own but no where near the one they are about to receive). So I guess, I do think AS pilots should get a way better deal in SLI. But Hey, I guess I am an AS pilot so my opinions, I am sure are biased. All in all though I am excited about this merger, the opportunity it provides for all of our careers. So welcome my VA brothers and sisters, I sincerely wish only for the best for us all.

 

I wish everyone the best as well. None of us asked for this. However,
Here's the reality of the situation: There is very little in any of this for the Legacy Alaska Pilots. VX get's a windfall pretty much on everything. Alaska Pilots might get a few hundred more after-tax dollars a paycheck. I've been around awhile and I'm not at all confident that our Management is going to offer anything close to the JCBA the Alaska Pilots have in mind. Reality: The VX guys would ratify what we have NOW. Management knows that so I wouldn't get my hopes up. So Alaska pilots will get a little more money. That's it. Is Seniority worth that? Not to me. There is *no reason* to ratify anything any time soon. I think it's more likely to see Jr Alaska people bail out of here in droves after they get screwed on seniority and are handed a 51% ratified garbage contract.

Ratification of a JCBA is the lynch pin to this entire deal. Everyone needs it. Everyone BUT the Alaska Pilots that is. Think about it.

 

Agree with most of this. And this most likely won't be our last merger buyout.

We 100% will support your efforts. There is a reason our union drive set records. We are unified and ready to fight for a great jcba.

That being said, None of the Virgin pilots would ratify the what you have now. The scope is unacceptable. Scope is one of our most important issues to protect our future. Alaska pilots should be flying the E175.

 

Actually, the way it will work is this. Whichever side gets Katz will offer a moon shot. Whichever side gets Freund will offer a middle of the road offer with some slight improvements. And then the mediators will land very close to Freund's proposal. Happens every time

 

That's not actually correct. Some groups do shoot for the moon but they get shot down instead. CAL in the CAL/UAL merger, US Air in the AWA/US merger as examples.

The arbitrators do not choose one side or the other. They look at the proposal, the facts of the situation and the proposed seniority methodology and they make their decision based on that. The actual seniority list is based on the methodology that the arbitrator decides fits the situation.

You are correct in that expectations can be raised when there is no conceivable way that they can be met. Arrogance and ignorance is a bad combination in a SLI. I've seen it first hand. But the butthurt from a perceived injustice won't last forever unless there is a methodology that perpetuates a split in the pilot groups. NWA/Republic is probably the poster child for that. Or the Air Tran/SWA hammer method of seniority integration. Once the groups are combined and people are free to bid wherever they want using the SLI that is arbitrated then people will lose the hostility. Keeping groups separate is what breeds hostility.

 

Fixed it for you Mike


TP

 

I think VX should just propose a 1-for-1 integration the way my merger committee did because that made so much sense when the other airline had 3,000 more pilots and 3x more widebodies.

 

I wonder what the Virgin guys think would be fair? Do they honestly think a relative seniority mix would be fair? What about in regards to Alaska's 9-10-11 year fo's? Would it be fair to integrate them with 2012/13 hires? If that's fair why not integrate Vx's 9 year captains with our 9 year captains in Anchorage? Just thinking out loud...

 

Not a union man amongst all of you....shameful.....united we(alpa pilots) stand, divided we( alpa pilots) fall....alaska management is what is standing in the way of Alaska pilots( all of them) having a meaningful and rewarding career. Dont any of you silverspoon, white collar college boys and girls forget it!!!!!

 

It's not fair. It's just Union policy. The UAL pilot one number behind me on our seniority list was hired 7+ years before me. Why? Because it ended up mostly relative seniority despite the large number of "jumbo" aircraft UAL had. I dropped about 3 percent from where I was pre-merger to the combined list. You can see Union policy is built to maintain relative percentage over longevity.

If you're banking on the "we are a superior airline and they all get raises, etc" tell that to my friends at SWA hired when I was hired at CAL who are still FOs and now telling me that 5 years have been tacked onto their upgrade because of all the AT pilots placed ahead of them on the list. No question SWA had a better contract than AT by far.

Good luck fellow ALPA pilots.