Elliot

I don't know "mods", too volatile? Just curious as to what everyone else thinks of the preservation/destruction of SWA culture?

doz4dllrs

How can this current threat of "take this deal or we will sell you off and you'll be out of a job!" be legal per the McCaskill-Bond amendment? A gun to your head doesn't sound like a fair or equitable integration process to me.

This seat grab is a disgrace.

skybolt

Here's my opinion regarding an answer to your question.

It's a civil matter, that's how. No one, or no govt entity, will unilaterally intervene unless someone files a suit.

That could be wrong, I'm not an attorney.

IOW, a "seat grab" is legal if the loser sits back and let's it happen.


In another vein, I think ATN ALPA and SWAPA just got snookered by SWA. ATN lost seats and SWAPA lost bargaining power for their next negotiation round. "Hired" SWA pilots are now on record as advocating a policy of "take the first offer" because "management is ruthless".

vandypilot

No comment

FAULTPUSH

The best thing for the industry, particularly wrt future transactions like this, would be if AT turns the offer down, SWA shuts them down and puts them out of work, and sometime later the AT guys win in court and set a precedent that you can't get around McCaskill Bond by clever business maneuverings.

But I think that the AT guys won't want to be guinea pigs for that experiment.

Andy

I don't have a dog in the fight but I think it was about as 'fair' as any other integration. It was certainly much more fair than Delta/Northwest - that should have gone down as DOH due to the massive early retirements on the DAL side just prior to the merger, along with the much higher percentage of widebodies on the Northwest side of the house.

Unless you're going to personally hang your butt on the McCaskill Bond meathook, I'd highly discourage such an action. MB was an amendment added to a budget bill (2008 appropriations bill). Both McCaskill and Bond are from Missouri. MB has no teeth. And even if it were to go to court, I'd bet on it dragging out for more than a decade unless it was immediately rejected by the courts. It wouldn't be the first law that the court would overrule - see Line Item Veto Act of 1996 for a quick example. Line Item Veto Act of 1996 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Too many who have zero skin in the game have been pushing AT pilots with the, 'if you had a single hair on your nuts, you'd push for arbitration' argument while completely ignoring the downside risk.

TonyWilliams

Can you tell me what this is actually about, so that I can edit the title to something the other pilots might understand?

newKnow

Before you compare McCaskill - Bond (M/B) to The Line Item Veto Act at least give a reason why you think (M/B) is unconstitutional.

The way I see it, M/B is easily constitutional. Congress was acting within their reach when they passed it. The Line Item Veto Act? Not so much....

I'd bet just the opposite as you, as well. In my opinion, because this is an untried issue, if a case were filed that cited a violation of (M/B), there is a good possibility that a federal court would issue an injunction while they sort things out.

With that being said, I'm not pushing AT pilots to do anything anymore. Seems like they have been pushed around enough. I wish them luck and possibly a good lawyer later on.

forgot to bid

I agree with Newk.

But I also think Andy was just trying to get a rise with a flaming post aimed at Tsquare.

Jack Bauer

You have got it backwards. Delta had a lot more widebodies. That said NWA had the whale (747-400 and -200). Not long after the merger Delta did what Delta does best and started parking planes. The -200's are all gone now.