What's the concern? An insurance payout?

 

I began writing a response to your entire post and it was getting way too long.

Before I go off the deep end here, maybe I can get you to consider something. Ok, two things:

#1: Arbitrators and their type (lawyers and judges) look at most things by who got, or who will get financially harmed. You can argue that you deserve Christmas off and your pick of the trips with all the great layovers all you want, but if it isn't costing you any money, they don't care.

#2: With #1 in mind, and you wanting a pay system where all captains get paid captain pay (with longevity) and all first officers get paid first office pay (with longevity), are you not putting in a system where both pilot groups have the same career expectations? (Career expectations to arbitrators means, how much money did you expect to make over your career.)

Are you not putting in a system where both pilot groups are all in the same category and class? (Captain & First Officer pay without aircraft consideration means you have just those two categories, right?)

Are you not putting in a system where longevity is already accounted for? (If a 20 year captain will make more money in his 21st year, and then even more in his 22nd year, no matter what, then as an arbitrator, I don't have to account for him stagnating later on because I put him under someone on the list who has less longevity, right?)

With these things in mind, if we were going to a captain pay and first officer pay system, if we merged with Alaska, Jet Blue, Spirit, or Hawaiian, why wouldn't an arbitrator just put in a straight ratio list from top to bottom? (Actually, for reasons I won't get into, we might even get less than a straight ratio list.)

Geeze. It turned long, anyway. Sorry.

 

I sure wish we could get a separate thread for all this union talk.

 

Not sure about a 3rd. ATL and DTW for now.

 

What else should you like to discuss? Fire away!

 

Thanks fellas! When you get as much grey hair as I have, you have to take all the compliments you can get. All the hot women call you sir, and it get's depressing sometimes.

Saw, I still have to look at the new UAL SLI, but I think I'm arguing what every attorney in every SLI, on both sides normally argue during the proceedings. "This merger is going to cost my pilots money!" Didn't the arbitrators in the DAL/NWA proceedings accept part of the NWA argument and give us credit for upcoming retirements? Why? Because of money.

It's all about the money and if you equal things (pay) out seat wise, money is no longer a factor, and straight ratio will probably be applied every time. Even if we merge with a company that operates C-172's. Well, that may be taking it a bit far, but you know what I mean.

 

Per the previous discussion it was mentioned by SD that the A321s and A330s are all growth. The 88 has been mentioned as all growth and the 739 has been mentioned as growth.

It sounds great if all we consider is the 2 seats that matter, but it's a lot of growth. And given our love for capacity neutral I was wondering if the all growth statements were accurate.

And let's say they are, don't we need to be hiring a heck of a lot more than 300 pilots in 2014 and if we are willing to announce orders we should be willing to announce more hiring.

 

On another note, from the UAL thread, it seems they are about to argue about whether or not the jumpseat should go by pilot seniority of date of hire.

I'm glad I'm over here.

 

I'm disappointed in you. This area seems like a weakness in the argument for DPA, and you act unwilling to engage on it.

The nut here is that we all know ALPA has flaws and weak areas. What we know about DPA is they would have some of the same flaws, and some new ones that we should understand.

Are you afraid to concede any of those?

If I'm wrong with the fact that ALPA dues have only gone down since you and I joined ALPA, then prove it.

If I'm wrong with the fact that we got a dues refund this year, prove it.

If I'm wrong with the fact that we've never experienced a period in the past 30 years that would have seen our dues rate decrease to 1% under the DPA constitution, then prove it.

But just brushing them off as my opinions without offering any sort of evidence to correct or refute them does your cause a disservice and puts your integrity in play.

 

Sea, Lax or HNL

TEN