For extra credit, does anyone consider the AS-VX merger to be successful? It seems that all AS got (or at least kept) was the senior VX CAs. The VX aircraft are mostly gone and the remaining VX aircraft will likely be gone by 2023. The JFK base was closed and east coast slots and gates sold, leased. Or abandoned. And they continue to bleed FOs to the legacies.

Seems like all they did was kneecap a competitor at a huge cost.

Agree. JB wanted to do a lot more with VA assets and markets. Alaska wanted... to keep JB off the west coast...

That merger was about self preservation. They didn't want JB to get VA more than they wanted VA themselves.

If you look at it through the lens of what they got out of it and kept…no, not really successful. If you look at it through the lens of what they would be vs what B6 would have been relative to what each is today, specifically with regards to the west coast (and its connections to JFK), yeah, it mostly served its purpose, albeit at a high cost. Then B6 mostly got what it wanted slot/gate wise during covid anyway, and AS unwound it, so it ended up working out ok for B6 anyway. The merger would have just accelerated it. So in the end, probably a wash. But it was successful at impeding a competitor from encroaching.

Wait until the Spirit merger committee proposes upgrade fences to protect the career expectations to upgrade on the current Spirit aircraft book they are bringing in.

Yeah, I'd agree. I was forced to move from NJ to CA when the NYC base closed. Now I drive to LAX. Since I had CAs junior to me on the west coast, when the base closed I was able to displace into a Bus CA seat at LA. And as Busses were being parked, I got displaced again into Guppy CA at LA. Of course I wish it would have been VX + B6. All the Buses would still be around and we would have maximized the route network and been a nice, strong national carrier. All things considered, not bad. Could have been worse (flown with many guys from Aloha, ATA, Skybus, etc) who were basically forced to start over. Nor did we get Airtran'ed.

They can propose that all they'd like, there is no recent SLI precedent for narrowbody fences.


Here is the SLI decision for AS/VX for those that asked...


https://pdfhost.io/v/2ESswD.yk_arbitrationaward

For what it’s worth I don’t want the merger. The access unlimited cheezits will be really bad for me. Those are my weakness. So for sake my waistline this merger must not happen.

Possibly unrealistic but I'm hoping DOJ blocks both proposals and we all remain separate.

Under pure DOH merge
Median gain for JetBlue pilot is 6.82%, Median loss for Spirit Pilot is 10.4% - that is a 17.2% Spread

Extreme inequality - October 2011 DOH at both airlines, Spirit pilot loses 18% while JetBlue pilot gains 11.9% - Thats a 30% spread

2127 (73%) Spirit pilots lose more than 5%, while not a single one gains more than 2%
2865 (60%) JetBlue pilots gain more than 5%, while not a single one loses more than 1.1%

Whoa Nelly!
Read ALPA section 45 on SLI. It is specifically intended to not favor one group vs the other. I think the SLI will be much closer to relative seniority than DOH