From the AA proposal:

the American Pilots had superior pre-merger career expectations based, inter alia, on American’s superior route network and hub structure; American’s superior fleet on hand, and fleet growth and enhancement opportunities; American’s superior competitive position; and the American Pilots’ superior, industry-standard compensation and benefits.



It's funny when the guys in bankruptcy use the word "superior" 5 times in one sentence.

Even funnier is the fact there was a superior LAA pilot who couldn't read some of the documents because he couldn't open up "excel."

 

Your quote from the "Litigation News" thread: "So what, life goes on...get one." Time to take your own advice dude.

signed,
A fellow AMERICAN AIRLINES non-superior normal DCA pilot coworker
73

 

Yes sir, this is from this week, the other one 9 years ago.

Just one point, you superior contract, BS. Going to training next month, told base to training not home to training. Hhmmm better, I don't think so. Medical and a whole lot of other stuff. Don't want to bore you.

That superior network was losing 300-500 million a quarter, and even though I know it was creative accounting, it was enough to convince a BK judge it was unsustainable even though you had 5 bn in the bank.

Superior growth? Wasn't Horton gonna furlough?

THIS IS NOW NOT THE PAST

Everything is not about pay scales, which is your only comeback. Without the merger Horton would have screwed you so bad.



Now I feel bad, your humble signature just threw me for a loop

 

One would think its just a few bad apples, but it is so widespread and consistent that its amazing. Do they implant this superiority during indoc or are they just selected that way during interviews?

 

Love you guys too.

 

Perhaps a better response would be to show where LUS actually was 'superior' to LAA in the areas mentioned?

You can go from home to training.

Without the merger we still had a better contract.

 

In Delta's case, it was to predict the area from which our new Management would come: Lake Superior.

 

1.) Health care costs/plans -- lower costs, with a max percentage, tied to Management plans (LUS-East). More variety of plans, with greater max coverages.

2.) West Trip Rig/Min Day (5:15 per calendar day vs duty period).

3.) West STD (sorry, couldn't resist abbreviating that just to be immature) coverage -- gone now.

4.) Check Airman/Training Section -- LAWA best overall with more days off/higher pay, LUS(e) also better. Included 3 times as many fly-days per year (3/month vs 14 per year now), higher monthly guarantee (95 vs 88.2 hours) for the same number of days (lower daily pay for events now). Ability to double up on events, reducing total number of work days. And don't even get me started about replacing Line-qualified F/O Instructor Pilots with non-flying, non-seniority list, NON-DUES PAYING (to APA) Sim-Ps.

5.) LUS profit sharing (traded away for $0.10/hour LAA per diem increase...).

6.) LUS(e) Line building/improvement (Line bids, followed by SAP -- improvement -- then secondary lines, vs. lines come out and they're bid on). LAWA trip trading rules, and ability for Reserve aggressive pick-up. Gone now...


Those are just a few of the areas where we took contractual steps backwards. But, to be fair, we did get a huge raise. So, if pay is your ONLY measure of status, then AA was the superior airline. No doubt about it. Most of us, however, take a lot more than simply pay into account...

Now, I won't even get into how far backwards the training program has gone (Level 5 AQP to Level 3) or the blatant obstruction to one of the best TEM programs in the country. Or career progression -- widebody IRO (or FB, I think you guys call them) goes more junior on the LUS side. I won't even bring up Horton's threats of outsourcing more of the LAA domestic flying to RJs and additional furloughs, because it is merely a speculative position.

One could write a book about this merger, and how to pit one group against another, it was so successful. In fact, that just shows how "superior" Jerry Glass and his company really is in all of this.

On a positive note, the company recognizes that these divisions may cause long-term damage, and is talking to one of the leading TEM/H-Facs companies in the US about coming in to fix it, post-integration. So, maybe there is hope "we can all just get along."

 

I see the shortcoming of that argument being 95% of the West group voted to trade their contract with all the items you mention for a contract that provided them significant pay raises (50%+) and pension contribution increases as well as a mechanism to possibly get the Nic list integrated. Neither which had been achievable over the past eight years or appeared achievable without this merger.
Both provided (will provide) significant increases to compensation for the West group.

It's hard to read how great the West contract was when the average vote for the JCBA was 69% but 95% of the West voted for it. It is apparent that the Wesr viewed the JCBA better for their careers than what they had.

It is human nature that once you acquire something you didn't have but wanted that you quickly turn to the next thing you want or in your case want back.

Had the West overwhelmingly rejected the JCBA, I would say you bring up some very good points.

 

Yes you can, but if, because of flight schedules, you can't make in from home the day training starts, you're on your own for a hotel room. No help from the company.