Seniority Integration

[Travelpro72]

I wish more HP and US employees would talk to each other on here rather than listen to some of the dribble you read from employees at other carriers. All you hear on here is "Take it from us", "Listen from experience"....blah blah blah. No carrier is any better off than US or HP besides a few LCC's. We need to communicate with each other and not form opinions based on what we read from employees at other carriers. It is us (HP&US) that are in this.

 

[Mtnman928]

Wrong, wrong, wrong....

Every credible equity analyst has called this as HP buying US. These are people who examine corporate finances and mergers/aquisitions for a career, as opposed to being armchair analysts (myself included) with a biased opinion based on our day jobs.

US is essentially being bought on the courthouse steps by an investor group including HP.

[post="276497"][/post]​

So how much $$$ is Hp bringing to this merger?

Mtnman928

 

[TechBoy]

You know, you are every bit as big of a know it all as A320Pilot. Both companies have both call it a merger... a marriage of synergies, if you will. If UAIR were being bought on the courthouse steps, a deal would not have been in place before opening it up to the required bidding period. I am happy that you can tell me which analysts are credible analyst and which ones are not, but given the fact that almost every analyst wrote off UAIR well before the 2002 chapter 11 filing, and we are still here, I don't put much stock in any of then, whether you believe they are credible or not. I quite simply don't give a crAAp what you or AAnyone from your pAAtethic AAirline thinks when you come in here and butt into our business. But then again, it's understandable, since Parker has already said one of our first targeted growth areas will be DFW, with or lowered cost structure and simplified pricing. I might be a little concerned about my airline too!

Bahbye!

[post="276502"][/post]​

I guess when that facts aren't on your side, it's best to bludgeon the poster and declare this board only for US employees. How pathetic!

Call it what you want, but HP shareholders will get about 40% of the new shares and US creditors (US shareholders get 0) about 12%. Sounds like an HP takeover with outside investors to me. What I can't understand is why these fact so threaten US employees. Frankly, HP shareholders are helping US out of bankruptcy at some risk to their own investment -- I would think that the US folks would be happy about such a takeover.

 

[PITbull]

Well, glad you don't have a say in it then.

It's not the 2000-01 hires that HP would be worried about, it's the 1958-1983 ones.

And if you want to talk about career expectations, those 2000-01 hire F/As were hired for an Airbus a week and transatlantic growth. That's why all of your Italian and Dutch language speakers are stuck on the E170 flights. By the way, the pilots in the MAA division have hired lawyers to make sure MAA division employees are represented as active US Airways employees if anything comes up about being "active only." The recall list has been exhausted, every F/A has had at least two opportunities to come back. There are F/As from the last class of summer 2001 flying again, and the MAA list is about half of the involuntary furloughees. The rest have either moved on and are enjoying the travel bennies, or will only return for the $1 more that mainline now pays.

An America West hire from any time would have expectations of a PHX base and narrowbody flying. Why should they be able to work the US Airways flight to Barcelona, or get a CLT base or whatever before the 1999 seniority US Airways F/A that was hired to do so? Or what if they were hired around HP's own bankrupcy bout? That's why "career expectations" are dumb, and thankfully not part of either airlines merger policy... which again, is AFA, which has date of hire in thier by-laws.

But everyone on this forum knows this, but you can't keep a #### stirrer down. 

[post="275899"][/post]​

Basically, in the next couple years, the more senior f/as will not be a problem to HP, it will be the f/as who have been INVOL furloughed at U that are ALL senior to the fa/s that were hired at HP from 2002 to present. They will slot in when they are recalled, only if we expand or have a shortage of f/as at some point. Fences will be up for at least a couple of years. And the only folks that can transfer in a base is ONLY when there are openings. I doubt there will be openings in LAS and PHX if these bases remain status quo and there is no expansion. F/as can not just bump folks out because they have the seniority. We here at U know this very well. At AWA they probabaly don't know how this works.

I don't see real issues with seniority as the full integration and handing over the list to the co. will take a long time. Contracts need integrated and AWA is still in section 6. Fences will be up and everyone needs to just relax.

 

[700UW]

So Hp has a 40% interest in the new company and who owns the 60%? lol

[post="276507"][/post]​

45 percent will be allocated to America West, 41 percent to the new equity and 14 percent to US Airways.

Source:US Airways

US Airways Merger Web Page

 

[diogenes]

Deleted by author

 

[diogenes]

Anybody mind an HP employee chiming in?

[post="276516"][/post]​

Welcome to the board.

You should jump right in; everybody else does!

 

[azvolfan]

We here at HP looking for answers to the same questions that I have read on this board. The biggest would ofcourse be the seniority issue. As you can imagine not many here at HP think the date of hire would be very fair. We do hear the rumors that our #1 pilot and #1 f/a would be at the bottom of your seniority lists. If this is followed by letter that would mean that a large number of HP pilots and f/a would loose their jobs when the deal is done. Does anyone think this is fair? I know I don't.

What I would like to see is the separate domiciles kept in tact and anyone in the "new company" who wants to transfer to a different domicile may do so only if a spot is open. When they transfer one of two things should happen:
1. They take with them all seniority and they get placed where they should with
that seniority.

or

2. Use a weighted average when integrating the seniority lists of the two airlines.
The high seniority people at HP are just as important as the high seniority
people at US. This would give everyone credit for the hard work they have
put in at each of their separate companies.

After all, this is a merger not a buy. That hard work of one group can not be down played over the hard work of another. Both must be treated as equal as possible.

Unfortunately there is no hard fast rule for some of this and time will tell all.

 

[autofixer]

So my 18+ years of: B scale, pay cuts, give backs, pension give-away, downgrades, working weekends forever, more paycuts, etc. so that this place is here to merge with HP, should be weighted the same as a <5 year HP F/O? See the problem of weighting?

 

[ClueByFour]

So my 18+ years of: B scale, pay cuts, give backs, pension give-away, downgrades, working weekends forever, more paycuts, etc. so that this place is here to merge with HP, should be weighted the same as a <5 year HP F/O?

[post="276573"][/post]​

Yes. The HP guy has "career expectations" of a 6 year (as opposed to 20 year) upgrade.

OTOH, once US retirements start, US guys should be flying the big iron, because HP guys never had expectations of taking a 330 to Europe.

 

[Busdrvr]

So my 18+ years of:  B scale, pay cuts, give backs, pension give-away, downgrades, working weekends forever, more paycuts, etc. so that this place is here to merge with HP, should be weighted the same as a <5 year HP F/O?  See the problem of weighting?

[post="276573"][/post]​

So a 20 year Lt Col veteren with over 5K hours and 500 hours of combat time with experience in everything from supersonic jets to 3/4 of a million pound transports should mean no more than a 1500 hour 'comair academy' community college dropout? It's the way seniority works. It ain't perfect, but the alternative is much worse. I'd be careful chearing for arbitration. It didn't go so well for Canadian, in an arguably similar situation.

 

[autofixer]

I guess my point would be, to do D.O.H. with fences on bases, equipment, etc. Arbitration sucks, but that is mostly the way it will come to pass...it always does. Just put up a big ole fence and all will be well. Am I wrong?

 

[Busdrvr]

I'm just glad I'm not the arbitrator. . Personally, I hate fences. they stop you from moving. If there is a pilot halfway up the 320 F/O seniority list in Philly, and he lives in PHX, and there is another pilot halfway up the list in PHX who lives in PHL, then wouldn't it make since to allow them to trade places? wouldn't a FAIR integration for bidding, while allowing U to retain longevity for vacation and pay, be mutually benefitial?

Straight sloting in not fair to the U guys who would be giving up some of the WB international flying to PHX in 5-10 years, nor is DOH fair to the AWA guys. tough call.

 

[ringmaruf]

wouldn't a FAIR integration for bidding, while allowing U to retain longevity for vacation and pay, be mutually benefitial?

[post="276627"][/post]​

Now under that situation, would a US pilot's travel seniority be equal to his pay seniority or his lower bidding seniority?

Because I understand that's another thing that HP employees are upset about, US's travel policy. (Which I thought US people loved.)


As for the F/A's. Teddy, I think you'd really do well to issue a few joint e-lines with the AWA MEC president to clear up some of these completely false rumors that are going around. (Often started by people at other AAirlines). The US people all know that 1,000 f/a's are leaving this year, make sure the HP people know that.

 

[Winglet]

So my 18+ years of: B scale, pay cuts, give backs, pension give-away, downgrades, working weekends forever, more paycuts, etc. so that this place is here to merge with HP, should be weighted the same as a <5 year HP F/O? See the problem of weighting?

[post="276573"][/post]​

The problem being your company is still about 30 days away from BK after being given many chances and carte blanche by the courts, while HP is still a going concern with a future.