AA Pilots Want Kirby and United Takeover
 

Short letter from APA regarding Kirby and UA takeover

I was pretty impressed with our CEO until it came out that he'd pushed for this. Literally the worst idea I've ever heard for the futures of those of us who work here...

Yeah, no one wants to merge, not UA, not AA.

SK just stirring up stuff.

The "letter" is just a lame dig at Isom...not saying we want a merger.

I'd rather merge with AA than JB......, lol

I thought the exact same thing. I don’t want to merge with AA, but if I had to choose between JB and AA.. well, AA it is

I don’t think there’s many pilots that want to merge with JB even one’s living in Florida. We have MCO and I think we will see some gates from spirit get bought in FL. Relatively young pilot group with longevity and as a company i don’t think jfk slots are worth the squeeze, but then again no one with decision making power asked me 🫠

Yeah the article is sensationalizing the APA President's statement.

It's a dig against AA management. The whole email was about how AA management is not viewed as competent.

Wall Street doesn't view AA management capable of closing the gap.

Our management is visionless while Kirby had a vision for something to drive towards.

It was no way an endorsement for a merger between AA/UAL.

It was a simple dig at AA management.

Rags took statements out of context and ran with it for clicks.

It's sad to see AA pilots buy what the article says when they have the full email in their inbox.

It's a nothing burger.

What article is that? All that is in this thread is the APA president’s letter.

Guess that is what I get for assuming the link went to one of the articles that took the presidents letter and ran with it vs clicking on it first just based on the thread title( the articles I have seen ran on the idea APA wants a merger to happen).......

But no way is that letter an endorsement of an UAL/AA merger.

Simply going SK has a vision where AA management is visionless.

He’s has a lot of ideas the pilots balked at that turned out to be winners for us. Not saying I’m a fan boy but based on his track record I’m inclined to listen when he speaks.

They made it pretty clear that the escalating number of JFK slots that the partnership provides over the next few years plus the fact that we have first right of refusal of any gate sales in JFK as well as permanent allocation of 20-24 slots if another airline buys Jetblue is the main reason that they are not interested in buying them. Don't remember if it was Quayle or not but they said at the CA upgrade class that "we got everything we wanted out of the partnership and there is no reason to buy JetBlue." Some of the stuff they said wasn't published with the release, but there are a lot more than just 7 temporary slots in JFK as part of the deal.

My guess is that the lawsuit that JetBlue ALPA filed against their company to force binding arbitration was when they realized that the scope of the "partnership" would be a significant enough asset transfer to United to deter a merger that they wanted to undo that. It was just filed in March 2026 in the Eastern NY District Court, which you can read all the filings if you have a PACER account.

Buying JB not is going to happen either way. They are in a bad place with almost $9B in debt (and growing) and it makes it a tough pill for anyone to swallow. Especially someone like Alaska that has already taken on debt for acquiring VX and then HA. Jetblue isn't a strategic acquisition for anyone because it doesn't add anything that the other airlines don't already now have, unless you need to add $9B in debt to your balance sheet because your Moody's rating is too darn high.

There are no mergers that are good for any pilot hired at United within the last 5 years. None. Its only Bad.

Very true!

Also - that's nearly half the pilot group now!