I am not sure why people are more concerned about the JCBA any more than they would be about the next individual CBA? Especially the NK pilots who substantially outnumber the F9 pilots. The pressure to get this done is on management, not the pilots’ union. If they want the votes to realize the economies of scale and synergy THAT THEY ARE TOUTING, they come up with an acceptable JCBA. Not any different than usual, really.

Ummm, if the merge is approved, there won’t be a next CBA. No way an individual CBA is negotiated, AIP’d & TA’d and subsequently voted on before the approval on the merger.
And, between both of our current CBAs, after reviewing both, we Spirit pilots have more to lose if the JCBA is not negotiated appropriately. Frontier definitely has a few aspects that I would love to incorporate into the final piece, but as a blueprint…. Yeah.
Also, we need to incorporate other airlines language too! This is not just a JCBA but also a chance for both of our groups to capture certain aspects of other CBAs that we like as well. Let’s keep a broad mind and capture all the gold that exists.

Agree, but my point is the CBA was up for renegotiating anyway, so if there hadn’t been a merger planned, we would still be going through the negotiation process, and it will still require a majority vote, with NK Pilots being a majority of the combined group.

It doesn’t seem to pose any greater negotiating risk than any CBA negotiation would have been with the fact that Sprontier needs a JCBA for the merger actually giving the pilots additional leverage.

Does that mean the pilot group can’t screw up the negotiation? Probably not, but at least they’ll have to work harder to do it.

My bad, I was looking at a relative integration list not a DOH hire list.

If this merger is like my previous experience with an ALPA/ALPA merger, the JCBA AIP is TA’d by both MEC’s individually before it can be sent for separate ratification by each pilot group. In other words, the NK pilots cannot “outnumber” the F9 pilots. If the process is different or has changed in the last 5 years, then disregard.

There will be some pressure on the company to get this JCBA done so that they can merge the pilot lists, but don't think that there isn't a million other important things they need to do. There's all sorts of merging they can do without us. Reservation systems, HR depts, branding, finance, IT etc.

Its not like the plan is dead in the water until they sign our new joint contract. All kinds of non flight ops stuff they need to do. We are only one piece of a huge plan.

That being said, I do believe that we are in a very strong position to get a great contract. If we can take some of it best provisions from each contract and add money on top... we will be doing just fine

Not just the best of our contracts, but incorporate the best of others as well….

Don't forget, "good" is subjective and in the eyes of the beholder. What is good for you may not be good for me and vice versa.

What’s not subjective is comparable pay to A320 legacy rates and since we jam pack our planes full, and don’t have the option to move up to a wide body at the very least we should expect legacy rates

I agree, we deserve legacy pay rates.

Do we think that the timing of this jcba might actually not be in our favor as the legacies probably won't be getting any pay raises any time soon?

We don't really have a good pattern to follow here. Maybe be best in some other airlines get new contracts and we can try and piggy back of them