OK, I will try and answer to the best of my ability. I ask you to understand that I do not have access to the information that you have in regards to internal East ALPA information and that much of my information has been what I have seen and read online. I also, obviously, do not have similar information from the West ALPA folks.
HP_FA,
HP_FA asked: "How so? What were you career expectations in mid-May, 2005?"
USA320Pilot answers: The same as it was for every other US Airways or America West employee. Both companies were operating as a going concern and nobody can predict the future. Furthermore, US Airways did not file its merger paperwork with the federal government using the "failing carrier" guidelines, as for example, TWA did with American as a means to influence regulatory approval.
I believe no employee should prosper at the expense of the other, which clearly happended in the Nicolau Award. For example, there is not one AWA pilot who had a widebody job in their career expectation, but with the Nicolau Award that has signficantly changed. Is that fair?
Fair is in the eye of the beholder. Many here have posted thoughts to what they consider fair and for whatever reason most of them feel victimized to one extent or another and often for varying reasons.
From my perspective I honestly disagree with your assertion that US Airways was a going concern in mid-May 2005. At a point in time around the Christmas meltdown of 2004 Dan Reed had an article in USA Today that mentioned possible liquidation for US Airways. (
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2004-1...ays2-usat_x.htm ) Tom Ramstack wrote in The Washington Times in October 2004 “US Airways won permission to cut employee wages by 21 percent in bankruptcy court yesterday, but its executives would not rule out the possibility the airline would liquidate. “ I also seem to recall reading something soon after the initial announcement of the merger attributed to either David Bronner or Bruce Lakefield that spoke to the issue that at the time of the announcement of the merger that US Airways had something in the order of weeks left before it would have been required to liquidate. There is also a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article from January 2005, quoting Vince Cordle and Mike Boyd regarding their then expectations that US Airways was going to fail. (
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_291263.html ) I have found nothing even close to painting America West into that kind of financial picture at the time in question. Accordingly, I disagree with your characterization that both companies were operating as a going concern at the time in question. Both companies were indeed operating, but one was clearly in deep, deep trouble.
As for US Airways not filing its merger paperwork as a failing carrier, America West and the other parties to the merger opted to merge with US Airways as it then existed, including all chattels and employees. As I recall, no other business was offering to merge or buy US Airways as a complete entity, but rather they were interested in parts of US Airways. Perhaps out of some loyalty to the employees of US Airways it appears that no serious consideration was given to parceling out the airlines assets, but rather negotiate a deal encompassing the entire airline, albeit one that was going to be downsized as part of the Chapter 11 process.
Because you and I come from widely varying perspectives on this matter, we are not going to agree on much, if anything. From my perspective, US Airways and its employees had little career expectations at the time immediately prior to the merger announcement. Had not some form of transaction occurred it is highly likely that US Airways would have either completely failed or been forced to start selling their best assets, such as the Shuttle, European routes and any equity they had in any aircraft. It is also likely that many, if not all, of its leased aircraft would have been repossessed as part of the ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy or, if converted, in Chapter 7 proceedings.
As for your feelings that no employee should prosper at the expense of another, how about looking at it from the perspective of an AWA pilot? AWA was actively hiring and training new pilots up through the time of the merger announcement. A first officer on AWA had a pretty good expectation of steady progress to a left seat position in a reasonable number of years. (One of the AWA pilots can feel free to add how long the upgrade time was running at that point in time.) US Airways had somewhere around 2,000 (give or take a bit) pilots on furlough at that same time. Their was no real upgrade expectation at that time for a US Airways pilot, especially as compared to the then America West Airlines. So while your argument sounds wonderful in a touchy feely way, I would expect that the America West pilots would contend that the merger very much hurt their career expectations once it was announced. They suffered and the US Airways pilots all of a sudden had significantly brighter expectations about being able to fly for more years then what would have occurred absent a merger or wholesale purchase of US Airways.
The Nicolau Award, in my view, complied with ALPA guidelines as I understand them. The three arbitrators heard evidence and even asked for updated position papers prior to closing the Hearings. US Airways pilots, through their MEC, NC and attorney refused to update their position which, as I have posted elsewhere, was a grievous error. Only the MEC and perhaps the NC know what attorney Dan Katz advised them to do and I suspect it will be a long time, if ever, before we know what Mr. Katz privately advised them as to a course of action. It should also be remembered that only one side to the arbitration put meaningful economic testimony before the arbitrators and that was in the form of Robert Mann by the America West Pilots. While I no longer have the transcripts on my computer, I seem to recall that US Airways pilots did not call any non-pilot witness to address economic issues. Whether this was because they could find no expert to buttress their position or because they made a strategic decision to gloss over the economic issues of relative financial strength at the time of the merger, I have no inside information as to why this occurred.
Now, because of the foregoing, I am going to decline to address the rest of your questions and I am not doing so out of disrespect, but because they concern what happened after US Airways was revived from what sure seemed like their deathbed. Had the merger, or some other transaction, occurred in 2005 there would have been no 2007 for the employees of the old US Airways. It would have died as any kind of going concern.
I suspect you will be unhappy with my stated observations. However, as the saying goes, they are what they are.
Respectfully,
hp_fa
