Originally Posted by Sink r8 (Post 1475598)

I think Boog123 is one of ours (Delta).

I think it's best to understand/anticipate that you're not going to bask in the warm glow of solidarity as a result of your SLI/ISL award. You're going to feel like you have to share your house and your spouse with someone else, for ever, and you're not going to be happy about the room distribution. Your opposite number is going to feel exactly the same.

Rather than have unrealistic hopes dashed, I would suggest you view the SLI as a traumatic and unpleasant event, get your hate on for a few days, whine bitterly when you're with "your side", and move on. Then get your mourning on, and say good-bye to your quaint (and grossly embellished) notions of the past at your (no longer) independent airline, and the rosy future you envisioned just for yourself. They're all gone.

I suspect none of you is going to feel a strong bond with your opposite number because of a "fair" SLI: you're going to bond with them despite being forced onto a list together. You're going to do it because you'll come to realize they're just like you, you're going to do it because there is no value in whining, and so you're going to end up doing it out of necessity: the quality of your future depends on your ability to work together.

We're a few years ahead of you, and we're still sort of in purgatory. Guys are flying together with little or no problem, but we're still waiting to punch at our weight class, as a group of more than 11,000.

So... good luck to you all.

Originally Posted by DontPickIt (Post 1475785)

Not to be blunt... but usually the guys that get a life and don't spend too much time at the keyboard (in spite of the shackles at work) are better off in times like these.

At the very least a few hours in the gym, on a hiking trail or in the water doing something exhausting make it feel like not so much of a swim in the sewer when contemplating where UCH has crept. Best case, time well spent with friends and loved ones sure does put some perspective into things.

Here's to moving forward for everyone.

Good Luck We're All Counting On You - YouTube

Originally Posted by SobeFlyer (Post 1475815)

Fantastic. A Capt I recently flew with stated the highlight of his career so far was having Leslie Neilsen stick his head in the pit during boarding and deliver that quote.

These merger threads could use more philosophy and less analysis and speculation. Regardless of what I thought in the past, I was NEVER going to retire at Continental. Regardless of what late 90s UAL hires thought, their careers were NEVER going to start off rosy. Regardless what CAL strikers thought in the opening days in '83, that self-help effort was NEVER going to end well. You can go on and on...

A true measure of one's character is not the cards they are dealt, it is how they play those cards. The deck has just been re-shuffled, and we are all about to get our next hand dealt. How we decide to play it is akin to how we decide to spend the remaining years we have in our uniforms, with our families, and on this planet. Happiness is our own responsibility.

Originally Posted by cadetdrivr (Post 1475467)

+1

Well said.


FWIW, here's the follow up blastmail the UAL MEC sent out on the 28th:

Originally Posted by Probe (Post 1475826)

Sobeflyer;
You have been a member for 4 years, and have posted 3 times. You are my hero, I want to be you.

Lurk more, post less.

Probe

Originally Posted by SEDPA (Post 1475542)

Many will opine that the soon to be released list is not so fair nor not so equitable ... but it is so only in their reality. By definition, the arbs award is the only FAIR and EQUITABLE solution. If one chooses not to agree, I wish you the best of luck.