AA/US Seniorty list out

[Ifly2]

Again,

To,the extremes...

No one including me said TW was flying high, especially during the winter.

At that time, niether did anyone say TWA was in imminent danger of dlosing the doors.

The most recent SEC report outlined a situation thay was better than most years, with cash on hand, cash flow better than previous years and full confidence in being able to refinance "the note", which did have an automatic extension.

Carty wanted TWA. Right or wrong, he did.

What none of you saw was the power struggle amongst TWA's board, with the Cooper led effort to replace Compton's team with the J Alix restructuring. That meeting was cancelled at the last minute, in order to hear the AA proposal. The AA proposal that AA's entire BOD approved.

What you also didn't see was TWA abandon the usual winter cash conservation measures, some of which were quite creative, extreme even, along with the usual winter presales of blocks of travel to STL RCGA companies and other corporate accounts to raise cash.

So the picture youndid see, after the announcement, was what you saw, but it was only the top layer.

No one ever said that TW was a financial powerhouse, only that it was not in imminent danger of closing the doors the first week of January 2001. Once the AA prooposal/AA deal had been accepted, it was a one-way street, and anything else was undoable.

Speculation about what would have happened absent the AA deal is, still, just exactly that.

No matter how often it is used as rationalization or justification for the treatment of former TWA employees, especially by the APFA, it is still not historical fact, and still is speculation. That doesn't just mean the actial SLI, but the things that were said, in print and otherwise, by APFA officials, especially including Ward.

There was no valid reason for the TW employees to be charecterized as scabs, ( other than the few who were left--far fewer than were at AA...), less qualified, less educated, less well trained, or any of the rest of it, and yes, they were. I have the SkyWords, among others.

 

[Ifly2]

This thread was about SLI

One day stapling an entire workforce behind yesterday's new hires is "the right thing to do".

The next, DOH, with a resultant loss of relative seniority for the bigger, stronger, surviving carrier's employees is "the right thing to do".

That is the thing that most, including my lovely Legacy AA FA wife, see immediately as not making sense. ( she knows little and cares less about the finances... To her it is a right/wrong issue...)

Long term career TWA F/A's and pilots were used as furlough fodder to protect very junior AA employees who would have (almost certainly... ) been furloughed absent the Acquisition and merger (yes, it was both...) including new hires, some of whom had never lifted a finger for AA.

In the case of the pilots, the the TW pilots, who made up approx 1/6 of the total group, absorbed almost 4/6 of the furloughs. I'm not sure of the numbers for the FA's, but it was obviously similarly disproportionate.

Call me a troll or a blowhard all you want, the above is true.

It is also true that it would be relatively easy to account for the risk to the Legacy AA employees created by the merger itself, as in known service duplication that would be eliminated, etc., and account for that in the SLI. Most would understand that. APFA, and to a lesser extent APA, chose to impose a solution that fixed that issue with a sledgehammer, and, again, imposed a highly disproportionate furlough on one group for events that had nothing to do with the merger and merger related consolidation.

There is more... The effect on QOL etc for those remaining, etc., but the highly disproportionate furloughs best illustrate the point.
.

To some, using longterm career employees as furlough fodder in the wake of 9-11, to protect those who would have been furloughed anyway, including literally yesterday's new-hires, who had done exactly zero for the now (then...) being combined enterprise, along with others who were not even on the property when the deal was made, was just simply wrong.


I never even heard one TW FA say that they expected DOH.

They also didn't expect to be publicly scorned and ridiculed, and put on the street before people who had never yet stepped in a galley, by the union that was going to become their representative body.


Again, for those of you who "feel", like this MM, that "someone had to prevail", or who can justify/rationalize rape with "it's just business" or the like, I'm not going to change your mind.

Not even going to try.

I am going to speak up, however.

You are not going to spin that as "the right thing to do" to the rest of the world sans comment.

 

[dfw gen]

your probably right twa could of held out to the second week of january......before liquidation.

 

[jimntx]

My current AA seniority is slightly over 12000. According to the merged list, my seniority will be over 18,000. That is not necessarily bad. Where I fall percentage-wise on the two lists has hardly changed. But, the number itself is not meaningful. What really matters is my relative position in my base. Currently, I am off reserve in my base. I would not be off reserve in at least two other bases. The question would be are some of those 17,000+ people senior to my new number moving to my base. If I am forced back on reserve, I might very well decide it is time to retire. Even if the PMAA reserve system is the surviving method--i.e., reserve every other month for first 3 years, then reserve 3 times a year until senior enough to be off reserve.

 

[Ifly2]

your probably right twa could of held out to the second week of january......before liquidation.

And you are probably the CFO's right hand ... And intimately familiar with the entire situation at the time.

Naaahhh

More likely you just gulp the water cooler gossip, galley talk and 30W BS because it feeds your superiority complexand justifies wildly disparate treatment of your fellow workers, union members and human being.

 

[eolesen]

And you are probably the CFO's right hand ... And intimately familiar with the entire situation at the time.

That's the beauty in SEC filings and the bankruptcy process -- it forces transparency on just how dire the company's finances were.

Continue to believe otherwise if you will. That spilt milk dried over 13 years ago.

 

[Ifly2]

That's the beauty in SEC filings and the bankruptcy process -- it forces transparency on just how dire the company's finances were.Continue to believe otherwise if you will. That spilt milk dried over 13 years ago.

Yes, including TW's last pre deal SEC filing, in which they outlined a stronger cash position, a stronger cash flow position, than for the same quarter in any recent years, benefits from improving efficiency, and confidence in the ability to refinance "the note" and maintain adequate cash reserves until turning cash positive again in the spring.

With the usual boilerplate and caveats, of course.

The thread was about SLI

MM fired up the "TW got what they deserve" idiom of response to a simple observation made by a Legacy US FA.

Supported by the usual cliches and (at best...) half-truths.

No one has yet, ever, explained how it was right to intentionally use long term career employees who were already contributing to the combined enterprise as furlough fodder to protect those who never had. IOW, stapling them behind, in some cases, literally yesterday's new-hires. In many others behind people who would (most likely...) have been furloughed in even the next normal cyclical downturn.

To some it just doesn't seem right.

Not fair/unfair. Not about "feelings" or "wants"

Right and wrong.

The answer from the unions' leadership was "because we can"

I'm a big guy, in good shape and pretty strong.

I "can" do a lot of things

A lot of them wouldn't be right.

 

[jimntx]

Well, as someone from AA who also felt that the former TW f/as were not treated fairly, I have to ask...are you going to turn every thread regarding anything to do with AA f/as into a rehash of the AA-TW episode. It happened, right or wrong, it happened. And, it happened over 10 years ago now. It is what it is. It is not going to be redone. We can all accept that or keep our panties in a wad until kingdom come. However, your outrage and indignation is not going to give ulcers to anyone but you.

The topic was the NEW seniority list. I asked the moderators to close the thread because the posts are not about the NEW seniority list. This thread has turned into a rehash of a 10+ year old topic a la the US Airways pilots thread.

 

[Ifly2]

Jim,

I didn't start that fire.

Post # 10 and 11, and MotorMouth wouldn't let it go, and started with the old "got what they deserved" and " lucky to have a job" cliches.

No one has ever answered, btw, is it right to place a longterm career employee as furlough fodder behind a new hire that has done exactly nothing other than sit in class, and maybe get their picture taken, for the combined enterprise. The AA BOD saw some value in TWA, the TWA employees created that value.

Some, like DiamondCutter, recognize that concept.

Others, are so absorbed with the "someone had to prevail" and " because we could" mentality that they think anything goes. Those always fall back to "they would have been out of a job anyway..."

I guess that is comforting.

I sincerely hope that they or theirs do not ever have a similar encounter with someone bigger and stronger than themselves with the same attitude.

 

[eolesen]

No one has ever answered, btw, is it right to place a longterm career employee as furlough fodder behind a new hire that has done exactly nothing other than sit in class, and maybe get their picture taken, for the combined enterprise. The AA BOD saw some value in TWA, the TWA employees created that value.

It's been discussed since these forums were launched ad nauseum. The counter to your argument is "should career expectations trump who you chose to go to work for?"

I made a conscious choice to work for Company A, and Company A's goal was to take business away from Company B.

If Company A's plan doesn't work out, and Company B steps in and buys them, it's not exactly fair to expect a warm welcome from the employees whose pockets you were looking to empty before your company failed.


Frankly, I think we're all a bit sick of the arguing over it. And to the original point of the thread, it looks like this integration splits the difference pretty well.

But, you can't ever satisfy 100% of the people. There will always be that 5-10% who want to piss and moan about what they didn't get out of the deal. And that's what ignore lists are for.

 

[Ifly2]

Aaaahhhh...

The superiority argument...

I made the smart choice

In the real world of the unionized, seniority controlled portion of the workforce, (that is a whole 'nother, different topic...) the "smart choice" turns on its head over a career, usually several times.

Fair is in the eye of the beholder.

I asked specifically about the rightness of putting long term career employees who had created the value that was bought by company B behind new hires that had to that point created nothing, and in fact only consumed value, from the combined enterprise.

No one ever answers

 

[flybynite]

Hmpf!! What moron on here thinks stapling an entire workforce is acceptable?
 
SMDH...

 

[jimntx]

The reality is that AA was afraid that United and US Airways were going to merge and AA would no longer be the largest airline. TWA was the only available purchase at the time that would have thwarted the United/US combination becoming the largest airline. Now you can quote SEC filings all you wish, but the reality was that TW was on its last legs.

From a settlement of all these issues standpoint, maybe AA should have just stepped back, wait and see if TW made it. And if they didn't, go to the yard sale and pick up just the pieces they wanted. Then all the TW employees would be unemployed and could start back over as new hires at the bottom of someone's seniority list--like the Eastern and PanAm employees had to do.

If they did make it, oh well...maybe the United/US merger won't go through and we can merge with one of them.

 

[flybynite]

Yes..I'm aware of that.  But, even so, AA decided to go forward with the merger even after it became apparent that the merger between US and United was going to fall through.

 

[jimntx]

Correction:  The AA-TWA combination was NOT a merger.  AMR purchased TWA.