The bottom line is that you're group's apparently fine with willfully disregarding years of service performed, and huge sacrifices rendered by others just to have kept this quasi-Titanic marginally afloat. That others did this hardly affords you any moral "high ground" for any attempted piracy.
I think your group is certainly justified in believing that you should be compensated for the huge sacrifices that you made to help the company survive, but I don't understand why you think it's OK to have that compensation come from the America West pilots. If you take a step back and look at YOUR idea of what's fair, it will give AAA pilots all of the upgrades and advancement, and the AWA pilots all of the furloughs. While I can see (but don't agree) with the attrition agrument so often presented, surely you have to agree that your methodology affords you far less moral "high ground".
Let's take an example from the seniority arbitration to discuss why DOH doesn't work in this merger. AAA called Mr. Hershey to testify. Mr. Hershey was hired by US Air in 1989, and at a fairly young age. He testified that he expected to retire #19 at US Air. Despite that *expectation*, Mr. Hershey spent the 16 years before the merger was announced skidding along the bottom of the AAA seniority list, being furloughed not once but twice. At the time the merger was announced, he had been on furlough for almost 2.5 years, with virtually no hope of being recalled.
Let's compare with Mr. Hershey with the AWA Merger Committee Chairman Ken Stravers, who, as luck would have it, was hired at AWA within two weeks of Mr. Hershey. Capt. Stravers's career progressed steadily. He moved down the list slightly during the bankruptcy, but wasn't even close to being furloughed. Not long after exiting bankruptcy, Capt. Stravers upgraded to captain. On the date the merger was announced, Capt. Stravers was in the top third of the AWA list.
How can you take those two guys, who were hired about the same time, and not notice the glaring difference in their career expectations? BTW - Capt. Stravers is NINE (9) years OLDER that Mr. Hershey is.
Even the arbitrator couldn't believe that Mr. Hershey honestly believed that he should still be entitled to retire #19. From the transcripts:
20 CHAIRMAN NICOLAU: You aren't telling me,
21 Mr. Hershey, that when you were hired back in '89
22 you took a look at the seniority list and then over
1 the course of time kept looking at it to make sure
2 you were going to be 19 in your retirement, you
3 aren't telling me that are you?
4 THE WITNESS: No, they actually --
5 CHAIRMAN NICOLAU: No, that is all I have.
Now let's look at a date-of-hire integration. Mr. Hershey would be recalled to the left seat, ahead of 2/3 of the AWA list. Even setting aside the arguments about "financial condition" of the airlines, how can you possibly argue that a pilot on furlough should have immediate right to be a weekends-off block-holding Captain? That proposal doesn't have a basis in reality, and it ignores logic and reason. What's even more absurd is that you expect Captain Stravers to be furloughed alongside Mr. Hershey. Even assuming that AWA WAS going to file bankruptcy absent the merger, do you honestly believe Capt. Stravers had a chance of being furloughed being in the top third of the AWA list?
So, in short, AWA pilots don't disregard your years of service or sacrifices. We just don't think that *we* are responsible for compensating you for that. The fact is that things are much better for your guys now than they were 2.5 years ago. We can't say the same. But, we don't expect YOU to compensate us for that, hence the focus on Parker (the guy who really created this mess) and a joint contract.
I do seem to recall the AWA ceo telling you guys that, absent this horrid "merger", that bankruptcy looked imminent, and that many of you would've been out of jobs. Hmmm....that also sounds a lot like like "Remaining at a failing airline" to a lot of people 
Apparently, you weren't smart enough to toss from AWA, and instead, just got very lucky. Don't pretend that said luck has anything to do with the slightest brilliance on your part, as it merely makes you look foolish to do so..."my friend".
