I heard a rumor that the airbus deliveries on the American side have been halted for a couple of months while they figure out the fleet plan.

I haven't heard that. I believe Aug 31 or Sept 1 is first pax flights. They are currently training for the A319. And filling advanced vacancies training May, June, July and Aug.

I thought all Westies were being displaced to Anchorage for the new E190 shuttle? :) No dog in this fight just going for humor......

Jokes aside, anyone have any actual educated guesses of what's going to happen?

2 seperate carriers until 11 exit and then gradual mixing and melting. Prolly be 1Q14 before that occurs. Start with gate/route sharing (crew fly through) and eventual slot mixing. Each carrier and their respective fleets will stay with their pilots until SLI, prolly sometime in the last half of 2015. Wide body fences for each carriers pilots of 5 years and perhaps up to 7. More E-190's added to AA fleet and likely see those at ORD.

Parker could have mentioned that 7 year fences may be an appropriate solution, but emphasis must be placed on may—no one, not even APA is dedicating to fences at this point:

https://public.alliedpilots.org/apa/...atest-QAs.aspx
https://public.alliedpilots.org/apa/...atest-QAs.aspx
https://public.alliedpilots.org/apa/...tegration.aspx
https://public.alliedpilots.org/apa/...f-the-MOU.aspx
https://public.alliedpilots.org/apa/...tegration.aspx

SLI will not be implemented for at least 2.3-2.5 years—this is already a fence of sorts. How much more of a fence do some APA/USAPA pilots think they need? NWA had fences for an extended period, which hurt commuters and extended grievances 20 years down the road.

It is much more efficient and profitable for merged airlines to minimize fences. USAPA/APA pilots should seek every opportunity to avoid fences.

Many commuters will gain tremendous quality of life improvements by being able to transfer across fleets. Imagine the amount of time families across the newAmerican pilot group would recoup!

My personal opinion is that any merger should have wide body fences that are limited to 3 years and no fences should be established for narrow body aircraft. The net effect is a 5+ year fence from today with maximum consideration for the company and commuters.

newAmerican is scheduled to grow in Asia/Africa/Oceania and combines carrier retirements far outpace DAL/UAL in the near term. What more do you really need?

I agree wholeheartedly!! However, many US East pilots are TERRIFIED that they might lose even a single speck of advancement for even a single day in what is left of their careers (especially those, and there are many, who are less than 10 years from 65) to anyone else. Frankly, this concern is no small consideration in the entire Nicolau dispute, which has resulted in a de facto 7 year fence (during which we've had no shortage of transcontinental commuters in both East and West domiciles!) at US.

Frankly, I think that reading most of the recent arbitration decisions is highly informative to what our eventual list will look like. Minimal widebody fences and a ratioed integration of some variety. DOH, long-term fences, and significant C&Rs haven't been used to integrate pilots since Northwest-Republic, and the results of that list proved to be an enforcement nightmare.

Well, without fences a large number of junior west pilots (as well as East F/O's) could pole-vault directly to AA's wide bodies in both seats over long-time native AA F/O's and even some narrowbody captains in a finely feathered percentile SLI. That would seem to be a windfall. To minimize or eliminate fences, the arbitrators would have to do a more coarsly feathered SLI, with "chunks" of various AA/East/West pilots.

I understand some at U are drooling uncontrollably at the thougt of unobstructed access to AA's larger wide body fleet and future options, but again, that would seem a windfall. One could make a similar argument for narrowbody captains seats as well and arguing that a benefit of domicile convenience should override that is misguided IMO. Another option would be a "TTC" (Time-to-Captain) and an "EWA" (Expected Widebody Access) formula that could adopted to quantify each pilots career progression expectation to those poitions at time of merge (based on his/her carriers orders/options) and that would modify HOW finely the feathering of the merged list would go, so as not to provide a windfall for any sub-segment of pilots.

Thats just because of their age. Nothing to do with AA.

Fleet basing post merger
 

So when could a junior F/O either side AA/US expect a narrow body upgrade? Realistically...?