No one but ALPA EVER mentioned the word "bankruptcy"....no one. That was a fear balloon successfully floated to speed up the process. The guys who were negotiating were not interested in snap backs, wage restoration, coach deadhead, etc because it didn't affect the majority of those greedy DB's because they were all short timers. The most important thing for them was gettting it done BEFORE they retired and we all paid for it.

 

Those test pilots had seniority numbers. I agree the pilots over 60 should have been gone but I’d rather have test pilots on the list than not. Today, at the merged airline we adopted the UAL practice of having a large test pilot group that is not on the seniority list. Not sure how that happened pre merger as the UAL MEC was pretty tough. Maybe it was the bankruptcy that forced this practice? It certainly is not manpower positive (like FO instructors) yet here we are, today living with it.

 

They were ALL over sixty and should have been released on 9/12 before ONE active pilot was furloughed. They were not because they were special friends of Fred Abbott. There were guys who were almost eighty still on the list, that's what a joke it was at the time.

 

I recall at least three during the mid to late 2000’s who were not over sixty. Two I know personally and are still here. One is barely 40. I believe you that on 9/11 the makeup was over 60 and you are right, that shouldn’t have happened. It was a special club for those who didn’t want to retire at the retirement age to have one hell of a nice post career flying gig. As bad as it was, it is better than where we are today as not a single pilot has the ability to ferry planes/test fly etc at retirement due to the separation of the list. I’m sure these guys are great (I’ve met a few), have wonderful resumes etc but how we lost this flying (and continue to have no access to it) is beyond me.

 

It was also similar to Len Nikolai (may he also rot in hell) negotiating a completely inflated second officer pay scale as a back door retirement plan for all his buds who were about to hit sixty. All the negotiating capital they ****ed away on that got vaporized after 9/11 when they parked all the DC-10's.

 

I disagree. I flew with three check airman who preached it over and over. They had no connection to the union. I understand that during a check airman standards meeting management showed up and scared the instructors to death. The company said whatever they said, over and over again....they didn't stop preaching and teaching until the instructors and check airman came out singing the same song.

 

Try to find any press release or 10K filing from the time with the word "bankruptcy" in it....you won't. It was a completely internal fear campaign and it worked like a charm. Many check airman at the time, especially IAH based, were also premier members of the Friends of Fred club, no surprise there.

 

Educational narrative ... Thanks guys.

 

No, you won't find any "public, on the record info". But, CAL was too shrewd for that. They knew to keep everything on the down low and use their CK Airman, left seat, right seat, and Jump Seat negotiators, and flight instructors to good effect.

It was the same approach that was also used to great effect to bring about the special deals for over age 60 instructors. Everything done via relationships and relationship manipulation. Prater-Abbot-Stankovich-Sturgel. That quadrouple whammy gave us the special treatment via those relationships. No other part 121 pilot group enjoyed such special treatment. Was dumb-founded as to how LC 171 lost the group grievance on the matter and was awe-struck no other ALPA pilot groups sued or filed grievances against the CAL MEC for allowing it to happen, even Allied Pilots Association, a non ALPA union was scratching their heads as to what Abbot had achieved, but hey, no blow-back so they kept pressing.


CAL was always careful as to what to write publicly. The tell tale was always an anonymously published "Q and A". You remember those? That's what the company put out about special one off topics and how flight ops and CAL legal viewed the issue du jour. Remember that Q and A getting pulled? Why? Because the FAA published a CAL Q and A and put it on FAA letterhead and tried to make it public law with that unique interpretation. No other FSDO in the country published it, and ultimately it was rewritten and then disappeared.

Sorry to go off course....Yes, the B word was mentioned, but done so discretely and via non-official channels. They didn't want to scare the investors or the board too much. Those in the target audience who needed to be scared or intimated to vote YES were indeed scared and intimated.

 

It wasn’t about scaring investors, it was about doing something that would have been illegal. They knew, full well, there was not a legitimate bankruptcy threat and to say otherwise about a publicly traded company would have been against the law.