What's a B3 guy? Who said I want the "best treatment"? I don't want a merger because I'll get screwed. I think it's not unfair for me to expect to keep what I have in a merger- not lose it.

You give it a rest.

 

What are you talking about? Did I ever say I've suffered? Did I say my opinion is the only way? I'm just trying to keep my position and pay, what do you want me to get? Screwed? Tell me what I should want. Why do you assume I'm in the bottom 3rd? Did I say I was? I see getting screwed in a merger. Period. That's all I've ever said.

 

American Airlines in talks with Continental, US Air

By Jui Chakravorty Das

NEW YORK (Reuters) - American Airlines (AMR.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has had early-stage merger talks with US Airways (LCC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and is in advanced talks for an alliance with Continental Airlines (CAL.N: Quote, Profile, Research), sources briefed on the situation said on Friday.

News of the talks comes after Delta Air Lines' (DAL.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Northwest Airlines' (NWA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) announced nearly two weeks ago they planned to merge to become the world's largest airline, seeking to counter skyrocketing fuel prices, a weak economy and a growing competitive threat from European carriers as trade barriers fall on trans-Atlantic travel.

American Airlines' talks with Continental are focused on forming an alliance that could share passengers, much like the SkyTeam partnership that includes Air France-KLM (AIRF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research), Alitalia (AZPIa.MI: Quote, Profile, Research), Czech Airlines, Delta Air Lines (DAL.N: Quote, Profile, Research), and Northwest Airlines (NWA.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the people said.

Alliances have flourished in the industry because they generate profits through marketing programs and flight code-sharing without the headaches of combining operations.

But Continental is also in advanced talks with United Airlines (UAUA.O: Quote, Profile, Research) for a full merger, the sources said. Continental will choose either the merger or the alliance, not both, sources said.

As folks have mentioned before - Larry Kellner has posted on numerous occasions to the CAL pilot group he has 6 long term strategies - with only a couple of them focusing on merging with UAL. Us forming a strong alliance with AA in the OneWorld Alliance network would be a strong move for our future internationally. With 6 confirmed 777's coming on and 25 confirmed 787 orders with options for more - this would keep CAL a very strong international player out of our EWR hub, sans any merger with UAL. Also, we've got brand new 737-900ER's arriving on property monthly that are continuing to strengthen our Latin American precense. Points to ponder.

 

757driver, How do you get screwed with relative seniority? If you are 15% on at CAL and you end up at 15% at the combined company how is that screwed?

 

75:

Based on your post, I believe you would support the jr guys. I believe the vast majority of pre-Bethune guys would serve us up on a platter, those guys still carry a lot of resentment towards each other from the Lorenzo integrations. The United guys are "united". Our Unity is non-existant. I'm with Otto, no merger is the best solution. Fingers crossed.

 

jdt30, just so unrealistic expectations don't take hold, relative seniority also involves several other factors, as was mentioned by CatIIIc.
One of those relative seniority tweaks is going to look at the size of equipment on each company's property. To illustrate, let's break it down by United's payscales (I'd do it by CAL's but I'm not smart enough to figure out the ratios between LN and SN). You've got three groups - 747/777, 757/767, and A319/320/737. There will be an integration based on those three groupings, so a bottom 777 guy at CAL would end up lower %age in the combined list than the bottom 777 guy. Look at how USAir/AmWest's merger worked out - the top 500 spots went to the easties due to having larger equipment on property.
That's only one factor; I'm sure that an arbitrator will take others into account.

With CAL's new website, they are signalling that they are leaving SkyTeam, based on the way I read the following quote from question 3 in their FAQ: "We are committed to being an important player in one of the three global alliances, so that we can continue to offer a broad, global network to our customers. We will communicate any changes that result from that review."

I read that as CAL saying that they'll either end up in Star Alliance or One World. I can't see Tilton allowing CAL into Star without a merger, and if a merger takes place, LCC will be in the same shoes as CAL is currently in. That is, LCC will end up getting frozen out of a lot of Star codeshare bookings.
I don't know how a hookup with AMR will work for CAL; that could be interesting. I imagine that AMR will either merge with CAL or LCC. If AMR doesn't merge, I could see them extracting quite a bit of blood from whomever they allow to join One World.

If CAL ends up merging with either AMR or CAL, there's going to have to be some additional investment capital thrown into the merged company. I'm guessing that it'd be ~$2B; someone threw $1.5B into NWA/DAL. I was surprised to see that NWA/DAL; I didn't think that there was much investment money out there to be had.

No matter what happens in all of this, I hope that CAL's pilots don't have any ill will toward UAL pilots. I haven't heard any derogatory remarks about CAL pilots from UAL. In the UAL/U merger back in 2000, things got ugly fast. There are still a lot of UAL pilots who have no love lost for the easties. I'd hate to see history repeat itself on either side.

 

Something is up. Last week CA Haug (APA Sec/Tres.) and our investment bankers met with our corporate financial types under a confidentiality agreement. This week CA Loyd Hill (APA President) is off to visit United ALPA and next week Continental ALPA.

Any of you guys know about these meetings with CAL ALPA or UAL ALPA?


Regards,

AAflyer

P.S. With Open Skies and Foreign Investment coming here, BA/AA is only "a matter of time". AA/CAL/BA ... Wow, now that would create a huge force.

 

I don't want to be mixed in with UA's 1993 hires as you probably don't want a staple job.

Pretty simple.

 

Otto,

I agree you should keep what have but, I certainly don't feel that your gain should be my loss. I was hired in 1987, using relative seniority basically mixes me in with UAL 1993 hires. Many of those 1993 hires are younger than me and will be above me as long as I am here diminishing my career expectations.

Sorry about lumping you in with the complainers who whine because they are towards the tail end of the list, you didn't do that.

What I've been trying to say is this SLI stuff doesn't come in one flavor. The junior folks at CAL are so afraid of getting screwed that they think the rest of us should go along with anything that benefits them.

I support your position, (a junior Captain), and I do not want to see you screwed but at the same time want a fair shake for me.

I guaranty the UAL 1997-2001 hires will have a say about CAL's 2001-2008 hires being above them.

An arbitrator will not just choose one method to merge the two carriers and you best get used to that fact.

 

I'm so tired of talking about it, let's either lube up and get it over with or just completely call it off.

Andy, I'm not trying to start anything, but isn't your management also talking about furloughing in the fall? Should that be taken into context along with how many widebodies you have?

It looks like I had better start kissing my DO's rear at my reserve unit just in case I'm furloughed. I'm going through a merger there also after the last round of BRAC.