I was told that guys on UA side were pushed farther down the combined list as a result of not being on property. Is this true

 

Yes and no.

As a group, they were integrated "lower" than DOH because longevity was a consideration in the ALPA merger policy and the thus the formula used by the arbitrators. But they were not stapled nor were individual pilots who had not returned (yet) treated any differently that those immediately senior or junior to them.

 

Sort of. Here is an explanation.

Two factors were used in determining each pilots position.

Status and Category (i.e Status = Captain/FO, Category = Jumbo, Mid, Narrow)
Longevity (i.e. time spent actively working on mainline)

So each side got credit for how many seats they brought, and each side was saddled with 0 credit seats. meaning they were placed at the bottom because they were on furlough.

Longevity was also factored in, so some pilot on furlough, but who had worked for 7 or 8 years before being furloughed right before the merger got credit for that.

So to answer your question, yes. Furloughed pilots were hurt because their status and category was 0 and they stopped gaining longevity.

Some furloughed pilots had enough longevity to push them into the same post-merger seniority as pilots in the narrowbody FO category, because those pilots had much less seniority.

So essentially a furloughed pilot with 8 years of active longevity was worth roughly an active pilot with only 3 years of longevity.

The UAL side wanted 50% credit for longevity.

The CAL side wanted 0% credit for longevity and 0% credit for status and category. They just wanted to go 1-for-1 because they had 2,800 fewer pilots, so their most junior pilot, who was on furlough at the time of the merger, would end up with 2,800 pilots junior to him, essentially putting furloughed CAL pilots senior to some junior UAL Captains.

The arbitrators gave 35% credit for longevity.

Many CAL pilots were shocked when the arbitrators did not award them their request.

Hope that explains it.

 

Cadetdrivr, nice explanation thanks

 

You to pilot64, sorry

 

No worries.

 

As to the original question those that differed my no diffrence as to where on the list they ended up. The list was built using data from a date that no recalls had occurred yet. There was no advantage or penalty for bypassing recall for the SLI.