No one is staying on the CAL side because they expect to do better for ISL. They are doing it because they either don't want to move, or are holding lines and want some predictability. Plus they want to see what they will be able to hold post ISL. Many of the furloughees were 777 FOs and many want to go back to that.

Nice try.

....and the 147 Cal furloughees were placed ahead of active, never been furloughed Ual pilots on the CAL SLI proposal why? Can you splain that to me Olecal? Obviously, your Merger Committee is FINE with putting furloughees ahead of active pilots. I am glad to see it.

Sled

His QOL is better at CAL, that is the bottom line!!! QOL has a lot to do with career expectations!

It's hard to get it through to some of you, but each side will put there best foot forward, and the arbitrators will decide! I'd be very surprised if the UAL list isn't the antithesis of the CAL list! Who cares what they put forward, only the results will count! Just be prepared to live with it! I will...

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Cs2ZlY7HwE...saltyballz.jpg

It's all good til you peel back the first layer.

Keep in mind the average age of these temporarily stagnated folks you refer to are 10-20 years younger the UA junior group. The jr CAL group will have have the last 10-20 years of their career super senior and with multiple times the wide body positions that they would have had otherwise. Unless the jr UA folks are given longevity credit, the jr CAL group will be given, what could be arguably called, a double windfall.

Age has nothing to do with it! So what your saying is, because you are younger, you have time! They didn't make the career decision for the folks at UAL. They chose a different path, and you feel they should be punished for that? See NS's testimony of 'A tale of two pilots". My mediator friend says that is a very difficult situation for the arbitrators to overlook, it's likely they won't!

This, however, will also not go overlooked,


and I for one find it quite dramatic especially when combined with the mega-carrier argument. That argument says the facts of history have shown that UAL managements assumption that further industry consolidation was inevitable is now a fact of history and CAL's management plan to continue as a stand alone carrier was a failed plan. Seen in that light the CAL pilots had a greatly diminished future if any future at all if they had not merged with UAL.

We shall see whose argument the panel finds more compelling.

Retirements directly affect career expectations. Retirements are based on age. Age of the pilot groups has an enormous effect on career expectations and therefore has much "to do with it."

The panel won't see either of your arguments. None of us is on the committee.

Well, then prepared to be surprised. It is not Mr. Freund's style to shoot for the moon like Mr. Katz. A stategy that our side understands and will follow. It worked well in Dal/Nwa and Usa/Awa, where Mr. Katz' side lost their a$$es. Just sit back and watch. :cool:

Sled

Ahh young grasshopper this is true, but Mr. Freund already laid out this very same argument in detail both in his opening presentation and in the opening brief. Does the fact that the mega-carrier theory is now history and the stand alone carrier business plan failed worry you.

If I were a CAL pilot it would definitely worry me. Especially if you're a Captain and were hired say 2005 timeline. You COULD be a bottom reserve pilot for a VERY long time, but then maybe not. Maybe the panel will agree that the age of your fleet, your higher W2s, and your decade of out performing legacy carriers that were busy shedding debt and pensions to prepare for the future better will win the day. Maybe. Who knows right?

That's as ridiculous as the pilot who held up the iphone and said he had more technology in his palm than the entire 747, 757, and 767 fleet.

It is short term being a line holder vs reserve. Also wanting to see how things fall out. His career if far better at United long term than at CAL.

You think these aren't being read by someone? Well the express jet forums were being read. They were specifically mentioned day 4.

I think the arguments are natural ones, and we will likely see them all mentioned during the UAL presentation.

Age has everything to do with it. That why the CAL side did exactly ZERO analysis of doing an actuarial style analysis of career expectations. They only wanted to totally get the best starting point today and used every outlier they could find to make their points.

How can you possibly know how your career progression is going to come out unless you say "This is what our proposed list looks like in 10 years...."

Conjecture ... can you tell us how you arrived at this conclusion?

So what YOU'RE saying is, absent a merger, I retire in the top 10% of the seniority list; with a merger and the "proposed" CAL SLI, I retire at the 45% mark. Meanwhile, the entire widebody fleet is filled with CAL guys that would have never seen a widebody captain's seat without the merger. I'm sure that factored in to these young jedis' minds when they took a job at CAL (rolling my eyes).

I don't have the transcript in front of me but is that the one during the CAL presentation where the UAL attorney later cross-examanined the witness and pointed out, using the exact same two pilots presented during his testimony, that the furloughed UAL pilot would retire a 747 CA and the CAL pilot could never hold anything other than 737 CA despite the 15 year age difference????

If so, then yes I agree, I think the arbitrators should have noticed. ;)

My favorite part was when the UAL attorney was cross examining one of the CAL merger committee members and said "Obviously I'm not going to get you to admit your proposal is ridiculous".

The CAL merger committee is well aware of that. That's why they couldn't do any future projections. They just talked about where people are today and ignored the future. No matter how the list is done, this is good for them long term.

They aren't stupid. They get what you are saying. They obviously benefit every year more than the previous year. That's why guys on this forum on the CAL side don't want to talk about career expectations.

Dude it's not conjecture. It's MATH.

Certainly .. Take the list of both pilot groups, in spreadsheet format, filter out one group, then sort on birth date. Take arbitrary pilot, delete all those pilots older than him (they retire before said arbitrary pilot). Now sort remaining list based on date of hire. This will show number of pilots senior to said arbitrary pilot on the day he retires and his relative seniority. You can do this for each and every year. Rerun the projection for the arbitrary pilot 5 years into the future by just deleting the pilots that were born in 1953 and earlier. Rerun the projection for 10 years by deleting pilots that were born in 1958 and earlier.

Now, do the projection with both pilot groups at the 5 10 and 15 year mark and you'll see how the CAL 2007 hires will ALL be flying metal that they had never any hopes to fly.

So, they made their career choice to finish their career as a 737 captain, and that's exactly where they should finish up, not sitting in the left seat of a 747 for the last 15 years of their career.

Exactly. I'd be shocked if the UAL proposed seniority list doesn't do this exact analysis.

Amazing how you can use simple math to quantify something like career expectations instead of just relying on talking points and hyperbole.

Absent the merger, United was destined to disappear much like the dinosaur they resembled. How's that for career expectations?

Yeah - instead we just bought you instead.

That is sooooo patently false that even CAL counsel didn't try to spread that lie. I can do the same thing, and it's backed by as much evidence as your falsehood: Absent the merger, CAL was destined to disappear like the small regiional carriers of the past (Oh, but actually Smisek did say something to that effect).

See how easy it is. Now, go to the spreadsheet and do some MEANINGFUL extrapolation of career expectations and check back in :).

..........mistake.............

Don't want to fly the 747 that won't be here. Absent merger capt seat in 2yrs. With merger capt seat in two yrs

Put the pipe down.

Step back - collect your thoughts and you will be more coherent.

I liked the fact that the member wasn't goaded in to a classless response like the one fruend got away with... I hope it made you feel real good!!! Simple little zinger, for your simple mind... I'm sure there will be more to come to keep you entertained.... Good luck with your number....

I grasp the math part ... i.e. estimating what seniority percentile you may potentially hold when one retires at age 65 ... The conjecture part is the statement that a UAL (any and all) pilot will have a better long term career expectation than a CAL pilot (any and all), had there not been a merger ... Could you please explain how you came to this conclusion?

What was classless and insulting was the CAL proposal. You don't like what he said? Classless? Really? Perhaps his assessment was honest and you just don't like it? The CAL proposal was a shot at the moon. Staple the bottom quarter of the UAL list? Sure. That'll happen. I'm glad he used the term ridiculous. Call a spade a spade. Perfect.

Scott

There is an economic concept called "ceteris paribus". In plain english it means "all other things being equal".

Using this theory, we can do two things. We can take each list of pilots at each separate airline, how many jobs in each seat, and time progress known variables (like retirements), leaving out unknown variables, and maintain the status quo in all other respects. We can calculate exactly where pilots would sit each year as other pilots retire. We can project what seats they'd sit in, etc. Each pilots can be given a "value" for their career. Not just where they sit in the end, but the entire value for the whole career.

We can do the same thing with both lists combined, moving pilots on each list up and down until the same values on each side are attained (or at least the same ratios to previous values are attained).

So a perfect example is the CAL list that was proposed. Many pilots have actually done a "me too" type analysis where they looked at where they were supposed to retire, and where they would end up on the combined list. If a pilot was supposed to retire #500, and now its #4,000 obviously that doesn't make sense. Same on the CAL side.

Some pilots are on furlough. They'd get zero credit for years they aren't flying, but then as pilots retire (ceteris paribus) they come back to work. They continue to upgrade and get a value for their career.

The question is simple, does a pilot on furlough at UAL have a better career expectation that one working at CAL? The entire career, including time on furlough.

Since UAL has mroe widebody jobs than CAL, and more Captain jobs as well, the argument is that a UAL pilot over the same number of years will have more chances to upgrade into higher paying equipment.

It doesn't take a genius to see that UAL's 3 times + as many widebody aircraft, with only 20% more pilots means overall we will fly bigger equipment over more time, paying more, etc.

I'd even say its "intuitively obvious even to the most casual observer".

UAL had more bases and more aircraft types in each base. That in itself requires more pilots, not individual pilots flying more. UAL HAD better work rules, which is the other side of the more pilot equation.

We had more pilot bases because we were a BIGGER AIRLINE.

OMG LOL.

OK. I'll bite. As a 2006 hire at CAL I can hold Captain now and would have been a WB Captain for my last 10 years with CAL with our current WB and NB numbers. For those that are saying that the merger is the only way I would've ever been a widebody Captain, that is simply not true.

Tmac,
Don't bother speaking logic. Everyone is set on their own belief whether it is right or wrong. As LAX pointed to about their career and pay.

Tilton was leading their company to two paths. Those paths being bankruptcy again or a merger. The economy and other factors allowed him to scoop it out in the 11th hour and get a merger. He had united leveraged and in a death spiral.

IMPORTANT TO KEEP IN MIND:

Both ALPA National and these arbitrators know full-well that if they deliver a combined seniority list that schittz on the UAL pilots (the larger group), that ALPA is FINISHED at UAL, and consequently that ALPA National might be in serious jeopardy. Think those arbitrators are gonna bite the hand that feeds them? They don't want another US Air on their hands.

I agree, it still stinks that we at CAL have to now call ourselves United. I wish we would have just let UAL go out of business and bought there excess fat that we would want and let the rest be sent elsewhere.

The best part is that if I get merged in with 1995 UAL people it will be like being hired at UAL when I was a senior in high school!! I could not be senior to myself if I tried!!

In the meantime I will just fly around left seat in the 737 and enjoy it.

OMG.........Like totally !

Lax pilot has been hanging out on the west coast too much.


WERE.

More airplane types, more bases, more pilots...........Same number of airplanes.

Sounds like over staffed to me.