You didn't mention AA pilots in your post. So the question is still unanswered, especially the "inherit the earth" bit.

I thought that open letter started to smell like bull$hit but it really did hit home as "EAST JUST GIVE US DOH WE ARE GONNA BE GONE IN A YEAR type of bull$hit" YEAH YEAH Heard that crap too then age 65 hit and those old farts still hanging around. Soon as I saw the nic award would really harm us so please please APA screw over the west guys, they wont sue you honest they wont:rolleyes:. Try and lets see how it all ends.

The possibility of AMR/LCC Seniority List Integration is at least two years away and would likely be implemented lastly after CBA. This timeline is currently being negotiated by APA and USAPA. A simple and conservative 3 year fence from date of SLI would preserve AA flying for 5 years from today. This would give the Unsecured Creditors Committee productivity sooner and allow American pilots to realize 1,200 or 24% of US Airways pilot retirements. Maybe American pilots will require a longer seniority fence? Further restrictions including protection of widebody flying should also be considered. However, I do concede the disadvantageous nature of a SLI that incorporates the Nicolai award to American pilots, but even still the benefits and of a merged American cannot be outweighed. American and US Airways pilots should embrace this merger as an opportunity with an open-minded spirit of cooperation and compromise.


A merger is bigger than any of us and we owe it to each other as pilots to collect all of the facts first before we decide whether or not to build the worlds biggest airline—American Airways.


Thank you for your consideration.

I have to laugh..

Watching this is like watching a man tread in murky water, hoping to be pulled to safety, while quietly holding a knife underwater, out of view of his savior.

As he is pulled to safety, the man slices the saviors throat, thus taking possession of the saviors vessel.

Where else in the history of the industry has a pilot group been so keen to merge, as are the USAirways pilots?

If this merger happens, it will be a show to watch!

Sorry if my questions have been answered and I missed it. I skipped over some of the same old stuff.

Who produced this video and why? I've always had mixed feeling about Crandall. The B scale and the attempted price fixing with Braniff come to mind. So, I have to question his motivation.

If you take it at face value, I agree with him. We have seen the destructive fight between east and west US pilots. There are pilots in both groups that will NEVER get over this and it has the potential to damage them, the group and the airline. I don't think a complete SLI would need to be worked out ahead of time, but a bulletproof method for completing it does. What gets lost in a lot of the east/west back and forth is that the US merger transition agreement allowed this to happen. It's why the ALPA merger policy was changed and DL/NW and UA/CO changed their process.

But, being the skeptical person I am, I look for other motives and messages. I was forwarded the video from the blog of the AA pilot opposed to the merger. Is the message just to scare AA pilots? Is it a coded message for AA pilots to come up with a favorable scheme then wrap it up in a MOU that would have US pilots voting for it thereby reducing the risks of lawsuits, like SW/Airtran?

I didn't see it as advocating any specific seniority scheme.

I really don't see how AA pilots can lose on a SLI, absent a disaster like the current US one. They are the majority and will be able to either negotiate or go to arbitration. With the retirements on the east US, I just can't imagine an arbitrator coming up with something that will damage AA pilots because so many pilots will be gone, something that didn't happen with US/AWA because of the age 60 change. I see US pilots coming out on the short end because of the small widebody fleet. Of course even thought I felt Nicolau wouldn't come near the east LOS proposal, I didn't think it would be as bad as it was for our bottom 40%.

Good luck to us all. Let's hope 2013 is a good year for all of us.

Ain't gonna happen without some serious perks for the pilots.

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I,too, wondered about Crandall's motivation for putting this out. This was a slick production, someone put time and effort into this. And at the end, after watching it twice, I am still trying to figure out the message, particularly in light of how poorly the AWA/US SlI was handled by the East and the company. Bulletproof language, indeed! Absolutely necessary.

I do not understand Crandall's antipathy toward arbitration. I believe arbitration is the best way to settle a SLI. No one will ever negotiate away their seniority. Each pilot group has a different set of circumstances behind it. To expect rational, thoughtful, unselfish behavior in this process is expecting miracles. The best bet is to put it in the hands of a neutral third party. And then live with that decision.

Calling for a prenup in this situation is ludicrous. Already we are hearing the bullsh## fly from all sides, and there isn't even a merger yet. What do you think, SWA/AirTran? I don't see that happening at all. AA is the carrier in CH11 and even in a post CH11 takeover they will not have the power to force a prenup. Any sign of the dreaded stapler will prompt a cry for McCaskill Bond and start the legal shenanigans. To me, Crandall shows his lack of understanding of the background of this situation and that is troubling for someone who outwardly still appears as the wise elder statesman of the airline industry.

One thing he is correct on, though. This process does need to be completed quickly and everyone will need to accept whatever happens and move the f%## on from it. The past 7 years shows that the company may make lots of money but it is not worth it to be miserable. Prior to this merger I loved my job and liked my company. Now I just like my job.

this may have been a response to the sentiment which exists which can be summed up "Where is Crandall when we need him" / "Horton ? we would rather have Crandall" etc etc similar, I believe an article or publication came out, from a pilot and/or pilot group, basically to this effect.

Flash forward to we-are-down-to-the-merger-wire, and someone got to Crandall and we have a video now.

Why does every CEO use the
"New Airplanes are coming" playbook in a merger?

And more important, why do pilots ALWAYS fall for this?


Doug Parker stands to make 18 million on this deal, does he give a damn about airplanes? Synergies of 40+ million, roughly equal to the purposed FA contract at USAir.

When will airline employees grow up and start negotiating like professionals.


perhaps to many questions

I suspect that all affected players at the neg table will be ASKED to play nice....If a certain group decides to play the hand that they soo strongly hold, they just might be asked to leave the game.. No major/minor seniority squabble will derail this merger. I can assure ALL parties involved, that when the final hand is played, DP will toss ANYONE/EVERYONE under the bus to finalize the deal...
And I am willing to BET my crew-meal on this!!

Because its worked so well on you in the past that they just keep on doing it. Pilots have become predictable and with the announcement of brand new shiny airplanes you will all just line right up to go fly them!!

See the real sad part is that with any item that becomes rare its price ALWAYS goes up! We have this impending pilot shortage looming and the only near term answer is "use what ya got" which means raising the age limit again. That too will run out and the problem will still exist. The new mins and the impending rest rules which go into effect this year will further complicate the issue. This means that we as airline pilots have just become a group with a rare skill set!!! There are only 90,000 AIRLINE PILOTS in this country. There are close to 400,000 doctors and well over a million lawyers so tell me why they are are making hundreds of thousands of dollars and we as airline pilots with only 90k of us are making dog$hit wages????

The airline pilots and I do mean ALL need to come together thru their respective unions and DEMAND better! We have all lost sight of how and WHO makes airplanes move!! The airline ceo's have made millions off our skill set while constantly dumbing our compensation down. If we airline pilots fail to take advantage of this shortage then we all deserve to get what ever we get. We are like GOLD in this industry and we are getting rare. Gold cost more today than it did last year. Why are we so cheap???

WD at AWA