Agreed that the CAL pilots overreached and the arbitrators discounted that reach. That's a lesson to all sides that presenting extreme positions only weakens your results. This arbitration has 3 distinct parties arguing their position on what is "fair and equitable". There will be no agreement on that. The result is that three positions will be taken under advisement by the arbitrators to craft their final ISL. The steadfast belief that they will (or should) first dicide that the Nic list is the most fair result prior to integration with LAA means that this arbitration panel determined its legal duty was to award the Nic themselves of which they are not signatories or that one arbitration panel is legally required to institute the award of another that went previously unconsummated. That is folly.

IMO, this panel will examine the THREE separate positions and analyze the pre-merger situations of both carriers and THREE separate pilot groups (a sobering reality, not a hypothetical). They will craft a hybrid model that almost certainly will not include the Nic in pure form. Some sections of the ISL may have Nic order, but that is not advocation of the Nic per se, but simply a by-product of the process of crafting their hybrid model. I certainly don't know what the final ISL will look like, but IMO it will not include the pure Nic and that's not based on self-interest. Since I have no control over it, I know my opinions will not affect the outcome and I'd rather be correct in my opinion then wrong, otherwise I'd simply be lying to myself, not unlike most of the yes voters for the TA.

For some reason, there is belief by many that this merger and SLI being the Christmas Tree it's turned out to be for ALL US Airways pilots (in pay and opportunities vs. the pre-merger status quo) means that the Nic is the Star on top of that tree. It isn't. The purpose (Star) of this SLI isn't that its the required resolution to the Nic, it's that a fair integration occur based on what pilots at each of the tree carriers could reasonably (remember that term) expect without it.

Eaglefly,

Take two hypothetical pilots that were hired 1 year ago by Us Airways. Lets call them Doug and Scott. They both interviewed on the same day and were both hired. Doug was sent to Charlotte to fly E190's and Scott was sent to Phoenix to fly the A320. They both work for the same airline and use the Cactus callsign. The only catch is the obvious lack of ability to bid each other's bases due to the long standing dispute. Now according to your logic Scott has no expectation of ever flying a Widebody and should be fenced from ever flying the 330. Even if he is one number senior to Doug and they were both hired by the same airline. He just happened to have sh#t luck the day that aircraft were assigned. Is there any precedent in the history of aviation for this scenario? That would be in essence re-ordering the seniority list. There are so many holes in the East argument I don't think it will take the arbitrators more than two minutes to discount it in its entirety.

When UAL purchased Pan Am's Pacific routes were the UAL pilots banned from flying 747's until all Pan Am pilots had retired?

Is it safe to assume that the East pilots would somehow maintain a majority and successfully fence out the West forever? Obviously when enough of the Easties retired that fence would fall. There is no valid argument that supports the idea that the West had no career expectation of flying an A330/A350. In fact Doug ordered the A350. I could see the APA arguing that the West would have had a reduced flow into the widebody category. But whether or not they can argue that point successfully remains to be seen.

I think the big question is "did the East UN-fairly keep the West from wide bodies?" If the arbitrators take this into account the outcome will be no fence for the East against the West. That is a real possibility. In fact I expect it after reading the latest ruling. Some on here try to say what a arbitrator can or cannot do. They are ignorant. Some also forget USAPA agreed to FEDERAL arbitration. Different rules entirely and very difficult to nearly impossible to reverse. You cannot just decide the arbitrators were UN-fair and sue.

Jeez Louise, where did I say your committee is "prevented" from arguing anything? I said they "won't" involve themselves in the east/west pilot order, not because they can't but because they are "neutral". Did you read the arbitration transcripts? If you did you will see 3 parties wanted the west to have a seat, 1 party didn't want the west to have a seat and another party was "neutral" and didn't have an opinion on wether the west gets a seat, that party was your merger committee.

Those junior pilots would take many years to move up to widebody captain and that is NOT the same as free bidding available to all. The same abilities are offered to all New AA pilots now as per the MOU.

"Back door" options (to the BOTTOM of another pre-merger seniority list) such as this are not commensurate with free and unfettered bidding access from all pilots.

Based on your logic, I could make a similar argument that Eagle pilots that flowed through shouldn't be allowed to fly wide bodies (as they had no expectation to do so when they were hired by Eagle) or STL based former TWA pilots should be considered as a separate list because they exercised superseniority (think "unmerged") benefits at that base.

The bottom line: USAir merged with AA.

If you review the financial documents pertaining to the merger, you won't find any mention of America West. That company no longer exists nor has it existed for a long time. While the seniority dispute has raged on for many years, I think your assertion that West pilots had no expectation of flying wide bodies in the foreseeable future means you've accepted the USAPA argument that the companies would (could?) run independently forever. Every other work group had successfully integrated except for the pilots, thanks to USAPA's efforts at exclusively benefiting East pilots. Had the AA merger announcement been made 10 years ago concurrently with the USAir and AWA merger, you might have had a reasonable argument...but it wasn't.

Let's cut to the chase. If the West merged as a stand alone group with with the 2nd class expectations you've assigned to them, they would be integrated much lower into the seniority list...which benefits...you. From one former Eagle pilot to another, that's disappointing.

The Question of wether the Nic. Is the list for usairways pilots was moved from court to the SLI arbitration by the Mou. I don't think you are comprehending that simple fact.

There were two separate lists and free-bidding was not IN place, nor expected to be at any point in the future (an "imminent" resolution") and that's not the same. any transfers between list only recognized that pilots non-Nic seniority and junior pilots such as you describe were not subject to the Nic due to arriving after it was awarded, no ? But anyway, that WON'T necessarily result in the Nic. Wst pilots had no free-bidding access to East widebody flying unless it was under specific circumstances AND they went to the bottom of the East list or there as new-hires as non-nic inclusive pilots.


UAL already had 747's (and other similarly economically equal widebodies) and there pilots were flying them. That was a route issue.


The East isn't going to anything to West pilots in this SLI. The ARBITRAORS will craft the hybrid model they believe to be the most fair based on the information they have regarding the carriers pre-merger situations and their pilots pre-merger career expectations as per the arguments. You can be sure there will be SERIOUS differences in each of the three groups positions regarding each other. Each committee will represent their own pre-merger pilots interests. That's about the ONLY thing that is certain. The weight and value of each argument will be bAsed on THIS merger/SLI's specifics and not that of another merger/SLI. The process of getting to that final ISL WILL though follow that similar though not exactly to the UAL/CAL integration.

Hey I get all this. You guys are arguing your beliefs here and I understand that. I don't agree with them and my "logic" is different. Expect the same in the actual arbitration. None of us are going to convince the other of anything and the arbitration will resolve the issues.

I would respond by saying that there is a seniority list which governs East and West. It is called the NIC. Standby for implementation. I guess we will see who is right in about 10 months. Arguing on here is truly a waste of time so I will save my energy. But I would strongly recommend reading the 3 days of transcripts from the preliminary arbitration. Very informative. I almost felt embarrassed for Pauley. Reading between the lines it was quite clear that the arbitrators found him to be full of ****e.

It is also interesting that they came out with an early ruling considering the extremely compressed timeframe to reach a decision. I'm quite confident the West has the moral and legal high ground in this case.