Arado 234

I have been here almost 13 years. I have seen nice perks disappear under APA, including:

• Jumpseater in the BOW (not sure how/if the new contract fixes that with taxi fuel)
• Jetway trip swap
• scheduling qualify esp. trip trading.
• lots of other little things

Is it an APA issue or more an AA pilot issue to re-invent what the other group had already brought to the table?

Where would we be now without UA and DL? I probably would be sitting airport reserve (CAW) which I am kinda doing anyway when I have a nice 3+ hour break in one of our hubs.

​​​​​​We seem to have a better reserve system than UA and DL (no limit how many times you get transitioned to SC?), not sure how miserable their trip trading is compared to ours. I am still waiting for Ed's solution to our TTS 2.0 cluster.

APA ran ads about our crappy schedules, but all of a sudden it wasn't a priority any more. TTS 2.0 has been forced upon us by ONE APA person. No committee or board had reviewed TTS 2.0 before it went live. Source: Ed Sicher.

Those are some of my personal points, would that get fixed under ALPA? Would we have the same people that screwed us under APA over at ALPA?
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ImSoSuss

Don't forget when APA "took a stand" and refused 200% over the Christmas Holidays a couple years ago when UA and DL were offering it to their pilots. What did that ever get us? Zilch. The Self-importance and omnipotence the BOD feels about themselves leads to many reckless decisions like that.

The issue is how our union is structured more than the people themselves. It is like Communism, might seem great on paper but it always 100% of the time leads to corrupt/dictator like governments. Harder to do under ALPA’s structure.

FXLAX

The conflict of interest issue is a big misconception. The mainline pilots are the only ones who can decide what to scope in and what to allow outsourcing. Once mainline pilots have negotiated that, then mainline management profers bids to regional airlines for that flying. One or more reginoals win the contract, then regional management negotiates with regional pilots for pay rates and work rules for that flying. In no way can a regional pilot group or a regional management dictate to mainline what flying they do. Its solely up to you as a mainline pilot on what you decide on does your branded flying. For example, SWAPA doesnt have any outsourcing. Skywest nor Republic cannot force that to change. But if SWAPA were to conceded some small jet flying, then the regional that is awarded that flying will negotiate with their pilots solely on the working conditions, not the scope of that flying.

As for ALPA merger policy, its pretty simple. ALPA requires negotiation, mediation, and arbitration if required. The arbitrators (three) are required to take at least those three things into account when crafting a fair and equitable list: status & category, longivity, and career expectations. That third item is key in a merger of two airlines with vastly different fleet types and business models.

Im not sure what you are getting at here but I can speak on my experience with FedEx. At FedEx we voted down our TA. And despite tons of opposition and delaying, 9 out of the 14 reps have been recalled along with two of the three officers as well. And there is a chance that there will be a couple more recalls in the near future.

So when you have a group that negotiates something that the pilot group doesnt like, change can be made so that hopefully that doesnt happen on the nex TA.

cornerpocket

So....give up seniority to regional pilots in the event of a merger? YIKES.

ImSoSuss

Or just do what DALPA did with Endevor and come to an agreement between the unions that prevents that if Delta ever decided to take Endevor on house.

cornerpocket

As long as that agreement begins and ends with 'STAPLE', I'd be open to that.

Guppydriver95

There would never be a regional list that merged with a mainline carrier getting anything other than a staple. Anything else would be a windfall. Most rj drivers understand this, but there’s always some who forget how the system is designed.

Zerosilver84

This was always an Ambrosi thing when he was the MEC at DALPA. It would never happen. Only reason it's even a thing is because in their PWA it says Delta flying will be done by Delta pilots. So by bringing in their WO (with gates/fences obviously) all Delta flying would be done by Delta pilots. Also removing Skywest and Republic from Deltas system.

FXLAX

Another thing I just thought of, when taking into consideration status and category, there isn't any way to fairly and equitably integrate AA with any WO unless its a staple. With status and category, you integrate WB CAs from one airline with WB CAs from the other airline, then NB CAs, then WB FOs, then NB FOs, and lastly regional jet CAs and then regional jet FOs. Since the WOs dont have anything other regional jets and AA only has WBs and NBs, it becomes a staple. And like I said earlier, there is the career expectations thingy as well. I can't see convincing two out of the three arbitrators of anything but a staple.

On the other hand, if APA merges with a wholly owned ALPA regional, Mckaskill-Bond law is used. And the law simply states that the list has to be fair and equitable. There is no hard requirement to apply status & category, longivity, or career expectations. The arbitrator can use any factor(s) as long as he beleives the end product is fair and equitable.

A staple is likely in either scenrio. But a staple is far more likely under ALPA merger policy than Mckaskill-Bond, especially if you end up with a rogue arbitrator.

JulesWinfield