Sure does.....

 

This is from the 3rd qt conference call

Susan Carey

Q. I'm not sure who might want to answer this question. Just wondering if you guys can walk me through the $454 million special item relating to the pilots tentative. I'm just trying to understand what that is. Is that just like a date of signing lump sum payments? Because you're mentioning $250 million in late this year or in early '13 as a starter. So I'm just trying to understand what exactly this is.

John D. Rainey - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

A. Susan, this is John Rainey. As Jeff mentioned, we have a gag order imposed on us by the NMB, so I can't speak with a lot of specificity to this. What I can tell you is that it's, I would say, common in agreements like this to have an upfront payment. Some of that is contingent upon certain hurdles that will be achieved after the contract is signed. And we would expect the cash flows actually come towards year end and into next year.


Susan Carey

Q. Depending on hurdles achieved by the company or by the pilots?

John D. Rainey - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

A. By the pilots, just in terms of getting the contract done and integrating.

Susan Carey

Q. Okay. And can I just ask then, are we going to be seeing accruals for other unions in subsequent quarters?

John D. Rainey - Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President

A. To the extent that we think we're going to have a labor agreement, that will be -- and there's a cost, upfront cost to that, that will be built into our forward-looking guidance. But I will say, Susan, that this is a significant step forward for us. The pilots are a very visible group and they're a very important part of our airline. This is a group that's gone some period of time without getting a pay increase, and I think paying our labor groups competitively is important to our philosophy as a company. And we're actually pretty excited about the significant step forward.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/9514...p=qanda&l=last

 

I just have a gut feeling from reading the overall tone of these posts. There will probably not a passing of the TA before next spring. How far off am I?

 

Way off. When this turd gets plopped out 55-60% will vote YES just like the Admirals at Delta.

 

haha I love the word "turd"....

I hope not though.... relaxed SCOPE = hiring stops.... (probably)

 

Except for the rare knuckle head, those who I have spoken with have been fairly consistent that $400 million is a non starter. Actually, it's more of an insult than a non starter.

 

Instead of "labor's not needed for this merger," if Jeff had started out with this kind of stroking who knows where we'd be now. We're not bad people. We just want to be treated with a bit of respect for the critical jobs we do--and a fair market compensation for it.

 

You can practically hear him wanting to finish the thought, "and it will be a big number again the last six week of the year if the pilots don't sign a contract."

 

I struggle to find admitted YES voters for Contract '02 at CAL. Sorry but i've found the lesson is that most talk tough but in the end the majority quivers. After all as ALPA will tell us shortly; "This is the best we can do and voting it down will cause many years of delay!" Hope I'm wrong but I doubt it.

 

Very true......I guess those 57%'ers are all huddled up together in some deep dark corner.

I've only flown with ONE pilot (Capt) who openly admitted to being part of that "scarce" majority.