I bet you're the smartest guy in every room.

Depends if you and I are alone in a room.

Two ways to interpret that statement…

So will the LOA help with the SLI at all? Does the higher wages/401k/etc increase the pilot groups leverage for SLI mediation? Or is it basically a wash?

I don’t see it making a difference

The ALPA manual says:

Most arbitration boards have considered that “career expectations” will refer to the career expectations at the time the individuals accepted employment, not based upon subsequent changes. But if the two MECs can’t hammer it out on their own, the mediators have the final say.

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I just saw the email from the MEC saying the DOT may now also be joining the fight against this merger? I just don't understand any of the logic behind this. The reason was for not being "in the public interest". I guess facebook, twitter, comcast and other mega corporations who continue to just buy up the competitor is totally fine for the public, but 2 small airlines is crossing the line. What a joke.

they think that if the merger goes through nobody will be able to beat up gate agents anymore.

The government allowing mergers in the past is what has led to this mess where small airlines can't effectively compete, and can be beaten into submission by large airlines with no recourse. There are other examples in other industries where the government has allowed too much consolidation, to the detriment of the consumer. I understand the position that consolidatation should be scrutinized and be balanced between the interests of the public and the companies involved/industry.

But, in this case they have it all wrong. They created a monster by allowing only 4 companies to control 80% of the domestic market. And when you consider how big our country is, and how many individual large metro markets are actually monopolized by just ONE company, they only have two choices to correct the situation previous governments have allowed. Either break up all four of the large airlines, or allow consolation to create a #5 and probably a #6 large carrier. Simply having more small airlines isn't good enough. They don't have the network breadth, network depth, or financial strength to compete with four monsters. Not effectively anyway. And the nature of airlinering allows for big airlines to double capacity and drop fares to below cost on the few (relative) markets the small airlines fly, because they can make up for those losses in all the other markets they have near monopolies on.

I believe the judge will see this, see that a larger JB ultimately helps far more consumers nationwide than it may hurt in the few routes/markets JB/NK compete on, and in addition there really isn't precedent for blocking an airline merger of this nature/scale.

They go over it well in this Podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI6CzBXFsUo

1:06:34 into it