You guys do realize the furlough protection and 24 month time thing were already in our CBA......that we signed 18 months ago?

Awesome. Me too.

Everyone step back from the edge. Below is a excerpt of an email from the ATN MEC received this evening.

...Yesterday, February 28, 2011, I received a letter from Mr. Michael Van de Ven, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Southwest Airlines. In his letter, Mr. Van de Van agreed that, if the merger transaction closes, Southwest will be a successor to AirTran as defined in Section 1.D.1. of our collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Accordingly, Mr. Van de Ven committed, as required by Section 1.D.2. of our agreement, that “during the period of separate Pilot operations following close, Southwest will adhere to and apply the provisions of the AirTran/ALPA Agreement to AirTran pilots, unless and until that Agreement is changed pursuant to the Railway Labor Act.”

In his letter, Mr. Van de Ven also stated that Southwest is both statutorily and contractually bound to follow the requirements of Sections 3 and 13 of the Allegheny-Mohawk labor protective provisions, and that it is Southwest’s intent to fully support the process being negotiated by ALPA and SWAPA and abide by its results...

FTB,

You have moments of genius. I just sprayed warm squirrel milk on my computer screen.

March 3, 2011

On Thursday, the SWAPA Negotiating Committee and AirTran ALPA Merger Committee reached agreement on the remaining open issues of our Process Agreement, which will govern the protocol and timeline used to attain an integrated seniority list (ISL). Prior to final agreement, our respective legal and management teams must review the document, as the leadership of Southwest and AirTran will also be signatories to the four-party agreement.

Is your process agreement called a 13(b)? We were faced with a 13(a) process, in which the NMB would assign an Arbitrator (no guarantee of any aviation experience) or agreeing to a 13(b). I thought ours was/is called a Dispute Resolution Agreement.

FTB,

Hilarious!

I hope there IS cake this time ...

W T F- warm squirrel milk? Is that some sort of Tenesee delicacy?

This is fun to watch....

SWA moved into DEN, SFO, LGA, etc and ATL was next. All while you're arguring about your CBA that doesn't really matter that much since AT is being acquired, not merged. (See the tax filings about Air Tran Holdings and SWA Holdings dealings). It is an aquisition, not a merger.

They are playing the 2 groups,... so play as 'nice' as you can. Hope it all works out.