hehe, good luck with any hiring.

Eventually there will unbelievable hiring at a newly combined US/AA. US East has all old pilots. Within 7 years, most will be gone. AA has very old Captains and very old FOs. When the B Scale was in effect back in the 80s at AA, the military guys wouldn't touch it, so AA hired a lot of younger civilian pilots. After the B-Scale went away, the older military pilots reapplied, and now they are just as old as the Captains. So, they will both retire together, leaving a huge gap for hiring. It may take 7 years, but eventually there will be huge numbers for hiring.

In 7 years US retires aprox, 1865 pilots....

A ratioed-by-equipment sli using the APA and Nic. Top half would be heavy AA with narrowbody AA & US pilots ratioed in after that. Or, Doug, APA, and USAPA agree to use DOH with fences and let the west pilots spend a decade in court trying to fight it. Either could happen imo...

From another web board
 

Subject: Notes from APA Meeting

Name stays AA
HQ in DFW
US comes to Oneworld (hurts UAL)
Pay banding
Starting point is current green book.
5.5% raise on date of signing
3% / yrs 2-6, then avg of UAL/DAL
A319 no longer a sep payband
Vac goes to 3+40/day. Better accrual
Hard freeze & 14% DC Plan
PBS. US West pilots love it. Well managed. Lines 83. P/u to 90. Keep current rigs.
Scope committee is "giddy" with what is offered. Parker doesn't understand code share. He wants the revenue. Max Dom code share = 4% of total asm's.
Keeping AA's Boeing/Bus order. Very excited to get 787.
Unsure about AE. Parker wants to see books then decide. Hates 50 seaters. Prob convert most 319 orders to 320/321's.
Med costs will go from 14% to 17% (I think 1113 had it going to 26%.
Not a sure thing, but APA seems quite confident. No timeline given, more than 2 mos, possibly by end of summer. Horton is said to be steaming mad.
Seniority may go to expedited arbitration. Expect percentile in type over any DOH (aka DAL/NWA)
US East guys will get about 25-30% raise out of this.

Maybe I have had too much coffee.... But doesn't all this sound extremely positive for us? Especially considering what AMR proposed last month. Am I alone in being half excited about a potential merger?

Only big question left is Eagle's role in all of this. Please avoid the temptation to inject your personal doom and gloom speculations regarding Eagle here. Truth be told nobody knows and anything is possible at this point.

I'm just excited to see an actual improvement in contracts and pay raises as opposed to a race for the bottom. This is a great precedent for the entire airline industry.

Well, I'll agree with the 7 yr fence part, the rest I'll leave up to the courts and arbitration.;)

If this happens, I don't think you'll be losing any seniority, at least you shouldn't. My guess is it will go to arbitration and the AA pilots will be given credit for the larger wide body fleet. The seven year fence should help you keep the attrition that your retirements will bring. Best of luck to us all.

Regards,
GQ

I heard a pilot say in relation to all of this, "be optimistic, but plan for the worst." Guess that means I'm cautiously optimistic.

New to the airline industry are you?