Listen Stinson, I think I'm going to make your point for you. I don't give a squirt about "binding". The Nicholu award was a windfall to the West and the top 500 east guys; doh would have been just as terrible. Even now, you enjoy a career that you would never have had if the east concessions had not financed this merger. Your whole argument rest on the fact that the East agreed to binding arbitration. I say again, binding doesn't make it right, so f#%k binding. It's shameful that both groups were too selfish and juvenile to work it out amongst yourselves then or now. So keep fiddling while Phoenix burns, I'd love to have a west coast base at my airline.

To answer your question, I assume that both groups agreed to Nicholau under the assumption that he'd deliver a fair and equitable resolution. The East don't think it was fair and equitable, so thhey did what they felt they had to do. The west was elated with the award and is doing what they eel they need to do. Probably explains why you're not negotiating with each other now. You guys better get it together or merger happy, intoxcated Parker will screw you both. And if you still don't get it, "binding" doesn't make it right, so screw "binding".

I'm pretty frigging sure Airbus, ACE Holdings, Eastshore Aviation, LLC (which *did* in fact use concessions given by AWAC pilots which were never passed along to United), and Republic Airways (which purchased the assets of MidAtlantic) would disagree strongly with the accuracy of this statement regarding exactly WHO financed the AWA/AAA merger.

What part of "binding" can people not understand as well......binding?

The part where "I don't like what I'm bound to."

I like U....Cactus

that's what i've been hearing more often

I think he gets it!

I understand that the award was skewed to the west, and I empathize with the long-suffering east pilots. I am simply trying to learn the mechanics of how the award came about. I am trying to find something that would refute the conventional wisdom that prevails outside of east that says "they didn't like the result of the decision, so they took their ball and went home". It doesn't sound like the east has any quarrel with the west guys. If the arbitrator was mutually agreed upon, and both sides agreed to binding arbitration, then what argument exists other than "we don't like this"?

I am involved in several contracts that are not as good as they appeared to be when I made them. If I simply stop complying with them I would face severe consequences...most of the world works this way. Why is USAPA/East different? I understand the Nic award was sour and even agree...but a deal is a deal isn't it?

Or the part where the binding is intolerable.

US Air pilots nearly burned the place down before the merger. Its been a rotten place to be a pilot at probably since the time Orville and Wilbur flipped a coin to decide their seniority.

The Nicholau award has to be acknowledged as flawed. A good decision is one nobody is happy with, but everyone can live with. It clearly is intolerable to the Easties. The formation of USAPA and their reordering of the seniority list is also obviously intolerable to the Westies.



My prediction: both sides are so ailienated from one another that they will never agree to any discussion or mediation or compromise of any kind. They will continue to antagonise each other in person and in court for as long as USAIR exists. Which will probably be a while, since they have no unity, management will never have to give them any kind of decent contract. They will subsidize management's ineptitude, (and lower the bar for the rest of us) for years to come.

I was being sarcastic...

"Fair" or "not fair" is dependent on one's perspective, is it not?

Regardless, "fair" or "not fair" doesn't change the fact that both sides AGREED TO BINDING ARBITRATION, knowing full well going into it that they would be, ahem, BOUND by the decision of the neutral arbitrator.

Just because one doesn't like the decision isn't reason to claim the arbitrator wasn't neutral, nor is it cause to selfishly take your ball and go home. I'm pretty sure if the shoe was on the other foot that Easties and their supporters would be telling the West pilots to quit whining, seniority/longevity/length of service matters...doesn't matter I was furloughed for half of my 16 years, where's my captain seat? After all I'VE HAD A CRAPPY CAREER and I'M OLDER THAN YOU, so get over it.

The lack of integrity is appalling.