I still don't get how (in any scenario) a United furloughed pilot gets hosed. If you are furloughed, your time sitting on the street until recall will be halfed post merger. If you are furlough #1000, you now have 400/500 retirements a year beginning in 2012 vs. 200/300. You may be back at work even faster once scope is hashed out. Once recalled, you will move up 400/500 numbers per year.

The one area where you may get hosed is widebody/narrowbody. UAL has a much greater ratio that CAL. CAL's pay structure, if adopted in the joint contract (SNB, LNB, WB) should make up for much of the difference.

Still, getting back to work two to three years faster, combined with the same pay on the 737 as you would have on the 757 is a much better deal than a UAL furlough had pre-merger.

I am not trying to flame or pick a fight, but is there something that I am missing here?

I didn't know you worked in management or were on the BOD. It must be nice knowing exactly what goes on behind closed doors. As a line pilot, I can only speculate - I don't have all the factual data you must have.

The primary reason the 737 went away was to 'right size' UAL for a merger. That is reality. Granted that's not got anything to do with CAL pilots, but I very much doubt we would have seen so many furloughs had it not been for this fact. So how do you recall someone 2 to 3 years earlier due to this merger that never would have been on furlough in the first place had this merger not been intended? You're certainly entitled to your opinion, and the seniority integration is going to happen how it's going to happen irrespective of anyone's opinions or feelings, just please don't tell me how much this merger has benefited me or my brethren.

If I get stapled, will I feel hosed? You betcha, who wouldn't? But I also know whose responsible and it's not the CAL pilots.

So why post any of this bullsh*t in the first place right? I mean, this garbage really started when I kept asking Lee why he had to interject with every post of his that he was on VOLUNTARY FURLOUGH. To reiterate your point, it doesn't do anything. To sum up what you're saying, no one cares if you're a voluntary furlough or involuntary - your status is specific to you (and I agree with you). The SLI will be accomplished outside of our respective pilot groups and posting your particular semantics everytime does nothing to help. I didn't do anything to cause or create the 1500 UAL furloughs as a line pilot at CAL, nor did the other 4700 CAL pilots. We don't need to hear about it constantly.

Talk about building common ground... :rolleyes:

Huh? I was responding to something CALFO wrote, or did you miss this? I'm pretty sure I pointed out that I didn't blame the CAL pilots, what else do you want?

Furthermore, I wasn't the one who brought up the issue of seniority integration, and what should happen to the furloughees, you did. I guess we're OK unless I happen to write something you don't like. You're right, so much for building common ground.

Scrapdog,

A major component of building common ground is trying to understand where someone else is coming from. By any chance were you hired 2006 or 2007? If so, it goes a long way to help me understand why you are so intense about this issue. Truthfully, if the situation was reversed, I imagine I might feel exactly the same way and I don't blame you one bit. The question is, are you able to put yourself in someone else's shoes so you can understand the other side of the coin? Agreement is not required, but without understanding, there can be no common ground.

Let me see if I can make it simple for you. I was hired in Aug 2000. Furloughed once after 9/11 (any CAL aircraft hit that day?). Furloughed again in 2007 for the "rightsizing", in large part because the union screwed up the scope. Then, the final straw, will be to staple our ass to the bottom of the new list. That's getting "hosed" in my book, anybody disagree? If we're eventually going to fly together (probably with me as your F/O), you could at least show some knowledge of the real situation and some empathy.


By the way, it bothers me that Lee says "VOLUNTARY furlough" every time too. It doesn't matter for the SLI--you'll get your position back. It's like you're separating yourself from the rest of us goons who got shown the door. OK, you opened it yourself. Stop saying it now.

I have total empathy for your situation. United screwed you. Scope screwed you. I also think it is true that United rights sized for a merger. Tilton made it known that his primary objective was to merge UAL with another carrier. USAir was extremely close to closing the deal when CAL came in, so I don't know it's fair to say that UAL was right sizing specific to CAL.

What I still don't understand is why you would be upset at being at potentially being at the bottom of the new UAL versus your previous position. You are going to get back to work much faster than had UAL not merged and you are going to progress at an extraordinary rate. With the amount of outsourcing going on at United (70 seat RJ's, AerLingus), who knows if you ever would have gotten back to work there.

Yes, there is.