It wasn't an accident, it was bankruptcy. Think ALPA's the savior? They also "actively work against the membership" using your logic that BK is no big deal.

I'm no APA fan boy but you're way over-simplifying things. There was a bankruptcy followed by a merger to deal with.

If you think we "magically lost" work rules bc APA was offered them by the company and APA refused them on principle then I just don't know what to tell you.

I get that there was a bankruptcy, but why did anyone agree to such a long contract with such terrible concessions?

Headline pay rate. Most looked no further.

On the LUS side it was because Airbus captains were making 125/hour for almost ten years, they lost their pensions, the JCBA ended the insanely intense east/west battle (if you weren't LUS pre-merger you will have no clue how big this was for them), and it wasn't a true section 6 so the pay wouldn't get better (it actually would have been less) if the JCBA was voted down.

The concessions you speak of were highly outnumbered by the above for the majority of LUS guys.

I get why the old LUS guys voted for the JCBA. I personally voted no but I hadn't been around long. The older guys had it really bad for a longtime.

I don't know the main reasons LAA guys voted for it.

But none of this really matters. We have the contract we have and we need to stop bickering and get ready for 2020.

The picture you paint is more pre-MOU than pre-JCBA. Remember that the LUS guys approved a MOU that put them essentially on equal footing with LAA pilots for contract and pay in 2013. The JCBA was then negotiated and voted on a year or two later. LUS pilots would have had the same pay and contract of LAA pilots had the current JCBA been voted down.

I agree. However the MOU is what tied our hands with regards to the JCBA and it's what we should be disappointed with.

And when I said the pay wouldn't have gone down if we voted down the JCBA I was referencing arbitration and the fact UA and DL didn't get contracts in time to up their average which is what we would have gotten.

That's all fine, but why such a long contract. 6 years?

Bc that's what they agreed on. The other things were more important to 65% than contract length.

other things like width