Originally Posted by sailingfun

No Pan Am pilots or FE's were placed behind any Delta pilots hired after they were. The date of the merger was 1 Nov 1991. Not one Delta pilot hired after that date was placed ahead of any Pan Am pilot. The shuttle was not purchased or merged on 1 Sep. There was a agreement to wet lease shuttle aircraft from Pan Am for the period 1 Sep to 1 Nov when the merger actually took place and Delta took ownership of both the shuttle and Atlantic operations.. The purchase agreement was in mid august and it was impossible to complete any merger agreements prior to 1 Sep.

Originally Posted by OscartheGrouch

Sailing,

I too was a PAA FE and have always heard that the FE's that came over to DAL where put behind soon to be hired Real Delta FE's. Perhaps the difference in opinion is the "wet" lease that you mention.
I can't look at your seniority list so can you tell me if those (FE's) who were at PAA during the period from 9-1-91 to 11-1-91 are behind anyone hired during that period at DAL?

BTW, I only brought up the DAL/PAA integration because I for one am of the opinion that all integrations are not based on DOH/relative seniority. One can argue that PAA was in BK and that those who wound up on the DAL list were lucky to be there. The argument that DAL took the "best" assets and then failed to come up with the 25 million they promised PAA will always be shrouded in controversy (unless Alpha Romeo provides proof of his/her claims). ALPA brought over pilots with the aircraft and somehow the very senior PAA pilots were without a job just prior to Christmas '91.

Those who point fingers at the "arrogant" pilots and management at SWA should ask the PAA employees who found themselves without a job at all as a Christmas present.

The Oscar

Originally Posted by RP4242

If I may, a few short thoughts from me on the 717s and to anyone that is surprised this deal came through, the SWAPA letter etc.

Since we are all grown and have taken mathematics and probably economics in some at least rudimentary form let me ask...how is this surprising to any of you?

Have any of you other than myself ever lived through a situation where someone said they would not do something as a reaction to a certain event but you knew well enough the first opportunity they got they would do it and would say "sorry, I didnt really mean it"

At this point in our lives we should make calculate decisions and see past all the political talk no matter if it comes from SWA, FL, Unions or Non-Unions, WashDC, or whatever state capital yours is. The reasons for SWA unloading 717s as early as possible without breaking the bank have stayed the same from pre-merger to merger to post-merger (or acquisition before anyone corrects me). I believe that everyone should have assessed the pure economics of the 717 under the SWA banner and then voted on whatever agreement they were presented if it had anything to do with them with this assessment in mind. I actually do not believe that anything was done "on purpose" or with "evil" this is how business is conducted. Do any of you seriously believe that if GCK in September 2010 said "We are buying FL to get rid of a competitor" the DOJ would be pleased? No. But why lie to ourselves? Who here has not come to that conclusion in 5 seconds after it was announced that strategically SWA needs to eliminate a lower cost high strategic asset holding LCC? Same goes for NW/DL, UA/CO and indeed US and now AA. Its all the same. The end game is to win all, and you can only win by taking everything.

The reasons by the way can be broken down into 2 categories: Economic Feasibility and SWA mentality.

We all know the 717 cost is that of a newer 737 with 20-26 seats depending on the configuration of a non-stretched SWA configed 737. These costs add up to such a significant amount of money that we are talking about flying basically 88 CR2s where we can fly 88 CR7s for the same cost. This is quite the difference, even after a payment is made to upgrade the aircraft to the tune of $100m and even if pilots transition sooner on a higher payscale this is chump change to the operational savings incurred from not operating the aircraft when oil is at such a high price. Notice I did not say financial cost, because let us not forget that DL is not buying these planes, this the sort of "I dont like my apartment anymore and my landlord is letting this guy I really didnt like before take over the lease. I really dont like him because he bullies me but its better than paying through the nose and hurting myself"

Granted I think there are several holes in this logic which FL people know very well. An analogy: The sub-lessor of said apartment will use it to turn into a underground gambling house, pay you the $1000 lease and reap profits of $5000 which they will use to destroy you at a much larger scale than if you just not let them have it in the first place and paid the $1000 yourself. This is what Delta does, this is what Delta will do and this is what each and every on of us would do because it is the logical and best business decision so we must not blame DL for this. I cannot say for sure how this will turn out and neither can anyone else, people made forecasts but that is about it, this is a dice I would not cast if I was running the big tent, and I am privy to the total operational costs of every model/submodel that the combined operation runs so I have a somewhat micro and macro viewpoint. This is one of those decisions that I look at and say to myself "Yes, this is very beneficial to me right now but the long term advantages are just too cloudy to be calculated". We may just find ourselves in a few years saying "This could have cost us less if we ferried 88 aircraft to Roswell or VCV O/W" Its certainly something that is not a completely insane idea because air carriers around the world do it all the time.

We could talk about why this deal is dangerous to SWA in the long run but I think that would be too much of a digress at this point so let me get to reason #2.

SWA Mentality - The fact of the matter is that the 717 could, and let me stress the could, be operated economically by SWA if the psyche and IT problems were broken and solved. There are a million and 1 things the 717 excels at, Delta knows this and this is why they have made this deal happen. If the 717 had no strategic role DL wouldnt even look twice at it. Everything that SWA needs to fix is represented in the 717, namely it cannot operate a 100-120 seat aircraft even remotely close to the best run legacy carrier in the US market. The 717 should in my opinion have been the catalyst for change and SWA should have tried to pare costs and operations to such a level where getting rid of the aircraft was not the ONLY viable option, maybe it would still have been the smart one but taking another one was just as viable. Upsizing is kicking the cost can down the road because the extra seats give us a temporary drug induced high that on the balance sheets which show us that revenues rise along with costs and everything is fine and dandy. If anyone believes this can go on for any kind of extended period of time you will be rudely disappointed. The catch 22 here is that eventually you run out of 737s after the 900 and then what? Then you must diversify. To make a long story short all of us here knew in 2005, 2010 and today that there is a bit of a tunnel vision going on at SWA which acts as an automated chopping block for anything that is unorthodox in the way business has/is been conducted. This is something that simply isnt the case at FL or DL as a matter of fact either. Whacky and insane ideas were brought into light at FL, there was no "Well, its not in our rule book so we cant do it, and if we did do it we must test for a few years and see if 30,000 people can sign off on it." No, there was the "Does this make money?" Test that if passed led to implementation. I guarantee each and every one of you that someone at SWA in the recent history (5-10 years) said that we must prepare for international and we must get a reservation system right now but it was chopped in the block because this unorthodox view point registered a SYNTAX ERROR, the same SYNTAX ERROR registered as $$$$ in Orlando and Atlanta for FL and DL. Had someone made the call and said "Well you know what youre right we do need these capabilities and maybe we want to run only a few flights per week somewhere, and maybe we should find out how to transmit data to the DHS so we could possibly fly 50 miles off the coast of Florida" would we be in such a predicament with the 717s right now in 2012? I leave it to you to answer this question.

Hence this is why I believe that the 717s were always off the table and if I was to have made a bet in Vegas I would have put all my chips on the decision that recently came down. DL looks at the 717 and says "Well, we can take this aircraft, offer significant better economics and comfort levels than our DC-9s, we will have more upgrade options for customers and a significant fleet size that we can elastically shift as capacity dictates between LGA, DTW and ATL and hell well get them for next to nothing compared to buying new MAX or NEOs" while the logic on the other side was "Well, I have 88 aircraft that are not produced anymore and I dont know what to do with them because my operational, product and price point options are severely limited and without them I cant really pare the operational costs of running an aircraft with 20 less seats to what I have." My point is that SWA shouldn't have painted itself into a position where it is strong armed into having no other logical choice. Its a very scary position because it relates to hypothetical and existing revenue streams and how do you actually generate them and/or new ones in the future if any idea is seemingly uneconomical or goes against the "Moral code for customers."

For what its worth I think the various factors that have put SWA in such a position were not necessarily caused in the last 1-2 years or are only specific to the 717. What I believe to be the future though is that there are much harder battles to be fought, battles that could have been completely avoided if the ship was steered to port and not starboard where the outcropping of rocks lays. Problem at FL was that the deckhands were getting paid less but the ship we had was a speedboat with 3 500hp Yamahas that could turn on the dime and outfox almost anyone due to costs which were in part due to deckhand pay, work rules etc. SWA I think to many a FL folk is something like an old turn of the century liner where people get paid handsomely and there is white glove no swearing, no spitting service. Only problem is the luxury liner in the eyes of the people that came from the speedboat see it sailing full steam ahead into the rocks, the captain is on some kind of a tea break and the ship itself takes ages to turn so the alarm bell has been rung and finally now someone has called out to the crows nest to see if there is something ahead but the answer is one of disbelief almost how it could have happened. Time will only tell if we can turn the ship in time, because there will be no life boats if we hit the rocks and it will be a psychological blunder in the airline business genre of titanic proportions. "How can this model of innovation fail so badly from a threat that was so easily avoided?"

Thats my poetic explanation before I go to bed

Originally Posted by nwaf16dude

Delta promised 85 million in DIP financing for what was left of Pan Am to continue operating. They paid that 85 mil, plus another 35 mil before they finally realized they were pouring money into a bottomless pit. When they cut off any further funding, Pan Am finally ceased operations in late 91.

Originally Posted by OscartheGrouch

A few short thoughts? Really? While I would agree that SWA has been slow to react to business opportunities I am not totally sure that DAL and AT are the perfect business models that you appear to claim. As I said in the past, a few years of difficulties and a trip through BK could cure many of the issues that you point out. It certainly has helped a few airlines (sometimes twice) to fix their problems.

I will agree that the next couple of years will be interesting because the issues that you bring up must be addressed. You seem to also have some ideas that are certainly worth discussing so have at it. At this point, the employees of SWA/AT are in the same boat (I refuse to call it a ship). We turn this sucker around or we come out of BK as a force to reckon with.

The Oscar

Originally Posted by OscartheGrouch

Whether they would survive or not, promises were made and then withdrawn. Who wound up with the majority of what PAA had? Just saying.

The Oscar

Originally Posted by newKnow

Purposefully obtuse? Yeah ok, shoe. I think you are the one who is intentionally deflecting from my point.

Focus, sir. I don't care who represents who union wise, collective bargaining agent, or whatever. My point -- to Ocscar -- was that you guys acted like it would be one happy family after the vote. But, now it seems that was all smoke and mirrors, because this the first chance you get, you are more than willing to see your new co-workers leave with the 717's.

My whole point was that that attitude seemed disingenuous at best. I didn't know what you were talking about with your collective bargaining agent talk because it didn't really have anything to do with what I was talking about, and I said as much.

Oscar seemed to get it right away. Look at his answer above and maybe you will eventually catch on, too.

Before you read it though, try removing the "obtuse" plank in your eye, before you point out my splinter next time. It will probably help you with your comprehension.

Originally Posted by OscartheGrouch

Sailing,

I too was a PAA FE and have always heard that the FE's that came over to DAL where put behind soon to be hired Real Delta FE's. Perhaps the difference in opinion is the "wet" lease that you mention.

I can't look at your seniority list so can you tell me if those (FE's) who were at PAA during the period from 9-1-91 to 11-1-91 are behind anyone hired during that period at DAL?

BTW, I only brought up the DAL/PAA integration because I for one am of the opinion that all integrations are not based on DOH/relative seniority. One can argue that PAA was in BK and that those who wound up on the DAL list were lucky to be there. The argument that DAL took the "best" assets and then failed to come up with the 25 million they promised PAA will always be shrouded in controversy (unless Alpha Romeo provides proof of his/her claims). ALPA brought over pilots with the aircraft and somehow the very senior PAA pilots (as well as other employees) were without a job just prior to Christmas '91.

Those who point fingers at the "arrogant" pilots and management at SWA should ask the PAA employees who found themselves without a job as a Christmas present wether they would agree that SWA is the only evil one.

The Oscar

Originally Posted by shoelu

New,
My apologies. After re-reading your post I realize I misinterpreted your statement. I thought you were stating that SWAPA did not want to represent AT, but you were actually stating you thought SWAPA wanted to ensure AT pilots went with the aircraft to Delta. It was my mistake and I admit I had a bad day and was far to surly. My apologies and I will work on the comprehension, but I can't promise much since it has never been my strong suit.