This explains it

[Bud8EE]

Closer, and a little low this time.
Nope - but you probably don't realize that US has pilots retiring from furlough. So that 1987 hire or 16+ year furloughee will get no benefit from more junior pilots retiring.

Then there's the non-active above them on the list. If a pilot who isn't working (disability, etc) retires, what advancement does it result in for the pilots below him on the list? The non-working don't vacate a job when they retire.

You see, US also has a pretty high percentage of non-active pilots who will leave no vacancy behind when they retire. So, nobody will see movement equal to the total amount of attrition. Even the most junior furloughee will only see his actual number change that much, but there won't be recalls above him equal to that change solely due to attrition.
Nope - the last East pilot on the list is #4691 if you extract the West pilots from the award. With under 2500 retirements in the next 10 years, that would make the last pilot #2200+ - a junior Group II Captain. [Edit - I shouldn't say that since the last bid result I have is Jan or Feb. So you tell me, Bud - which "widebody" job will a 2200 seniority number hold?]
As you can see, if the pre-merger expectation was that the most junior East pilot would be a widebody Captain in 10 years because of attrition, the expectation was wrong.

Of course, if you think the arbitrator should have granted everyone's wildest dreams instead of realistic expectations, that's a different story.....

Unfortunately, I don't have a West seniority with DOB and DOH so let's assume for a moment that USA320Pilot was right about West attrition averaging 50/year for the next 10 years - 500 total.

On the arbitrator's list, the junior (East) pilot is #6520. That pilot will benefit from both East and West attrition, or a little under 3000 retirements. So in 10 years (if he hasn't retired) the most junior (East) pilot will be #3500+/-. I can hear it now - see, I told you I was robbed!!!

However, assuming no changes other than attrition, the combined fleet is about 65% bigger than just the East fleet. Which means about 65% more Captains. That means that the current junior East pilot will be - amazing isn't it - a junior Group II captain. [Edit again - You tell me, Bud - with a combined fleet of almost 360 airplanes instead of only the 220 plane East fleet, what will a 3500 seniority number hold?]

Now what's all this about expectations not being being met.....

Jim

[Edit #3]
I finally got out the calculator. The combined fleet is 64% bigger than the East fleet. If that means even 60% more captains, that junior (East) pilot is ever so slightly better off than he would have been staying separate - there are only 59% more people in front of him.

The bottom active pilot with 20 years just went junior to a 1998 higher. Hard to imagine a number of 4000+ for that guy when USAir has a fleet of 220 or so.

Chances are the bulk of your 99 and 00 hires would benefit from attrition.

 

[BoeingBoy]

But, here the rub with me, and it's all about me, now . I'm around 1900 on the US list. I would like to hold a capt bid on the A320 in CLT til my last 5-10 years then bid capt on the 330. I would have been, lets just say, less than number 3 on the list at 60, now I have around 120 AWA guys senior and younger than me.

That presumably makes you one of the 2 or 3 East pilots born in '62 or '63 - the babies of the East.

You're right, in a few "extraordinary" cases (people very young for their East seniority (would this be a good place to insert the "age should mean something" arguments I've read!! ) a few pilots could be worse off if one assumes that the only change the future will bring is mandatory retirements. But in 15 years, anything can happen - look at the expectations for the US/PS/PI merger in 1990 and what existed by 2005. That far out should anything be guaranteed by a merging of seniority lists? Besides, is the difference between #3 and #123 so earthshattering that it's worth "burning this place down"?

Who's to not only say, but guarantee in the combined list, that HP wouldn't have widebodies going to Europe/Asia in 15 years and those 100+ HP pilots would have been flying it before you without the merger. Besides, only having a handful of widebodies is something of an aberration for an airline our size - look at the airlines ranked on either side of us - CO and NW. One a little bigger and one a little smaller (by most common measures) and both have a lot more widebodies than US. Should that aberration be codified in the merged list based only on the prediction that it will still exist in 15 years?

True story - my last PI number (1989 list) was 458 and I expected to retire from PI a little over #100. I retired with seniority #391 (2006 list). The expectation was that growth would "take care of everything", then we went from about 440 airplanes to about 220. Should my expectations have been somehow guaranteed and someone else have taken the hit for my "dashed expectations"?

Not that I think the award is perfect - they never are - but the widebody protection is one of the two things that I would have done a little differently if I had been the arbitrator. But overall, it meets my "what you could do the day before you could still do the day after" test for fairness. In general, nobody has more, or less, bidding power than they had on their separate list.

On another thread you said that USAir guys wanted their attrition and the west's.

That is the effect of a straight DOH method. If the most senior HP F/O would be put amoung our furloughed, who would
get all the Captain bids for years to come - the East pilots. So while the West pilot's number would change yearly from attrition - they would stay no higher than they were when the list went into effect for a long time. That's what I meant.

I know - put in conditions/restrictions. The problem is two-fold. Conditions/restrictions often assume a future course of events - because X is going to happen there needs to be Y adjustment. If that future doesn't happen the conditions/restrictions don't work as well as they were intended (or work too well). And the more complex the conditions/restrictions are the easier they are to take advantage of in the "put theory into practice" step - how they will actually be implemented. Not that one side or the other would want to do that. I've been eye-witness to both problems....



Jim

 

[EastUS]

How about substituting the AWA crew with a MESA crew .....

Ummm..and you cannot envision such as a real possibility in YOUR "It's all about me!" fantasized "future"? Perhaps you'll eventually enjoy the opportunity to be displaced/replaced by so9me "I bought my Learner's Permit" Mesa copilot..if your AWA notions of "seniority" maintain.

You just "think" that you hired on as an AWA guy..purely and plainly...and your "career expectations" are in accordance: What happens when yet another "merger" occurs?

You're no more "AWA" than you are a porcupine...such is entirely at the whim of corporate entities that you've zero control over.

Give it a few years..if this place is even still around...Perhaps you too can eventually develop some degree of understanding....you've seen nothing as of yet.

 

[BoeingBoy]

The bottom active pilot with 20 years just went junior to a 1998 higher. Hard to imagine a number of 4000+ for that guy when USAir has a fleet of 220 or so.

It's getting late, so I'll just assume that his number on the combined list. If so, that's his number based on the combined airline with almost 360 planes - not 220.

Chances are the bulk of your 99 and 00 hires would benefit from attrition.

Chances are even better that everyone will benefit from attrition except those doing the attriting. The only question is whether or not, and if so to what degree, those expected benefits should be codified in the merged list by using them to determine placement of a particular pilot.

One only has to look at US over the last 16 years to see that there are no guarantees when it comes to expectations.

Jim

 

[EastUS]

And the more complex the conditions/restrictions are the easier they are to take advantage of in the "put theory into practice" step - how they will actually be implemented. Not that one side or the other would want to do that. I've been eye-witness to both problems....
Jim

No offence Jim...But you're of the Piedmont "screw DOH...I want my Slotting!!" bunch that so wholly irritated the likes of myself (PSA). You've described yourself as "fighting the good fight"...What an utter crock The "good fight" evidently equated directly to "I wan't MINE"...."Waaah!". If there were any "higher visions" within the then Piedmont community...it escaped the rest of us who sufferred from the "I got mine!!" slotting. If there was any "noble concept" as to some semblance of brotherhood for aviatiors back then..you guys tripped merrily over such with willfull, and joyous abandon...spare me the BS about "the good fight"......

I'm pleased that, in your retirement, that you've ample time to find these boards amusing....after all?=you guys were "fine" with the notion of obliterating DOH for your own "career expectations"...How'd those "expectations" go as per our pensions? Anyone with "career expectations" likely is still a firm supporter of Santa Claus. What's absurd in the Nic award's the issues that grossly transgress against basic human societal "rules" ie: Someone in diapers becoming "senior" to one who was flying when the former's condition was in effect.

PS: I'm not going to "starve" either.

 

[PITbull]

A friend of mine is a lead FA for US/West since Day 1. Her words regarding the merger - "So, when I wake up tomorrow, if I have a job, the merger was worth it." ... US/East was sinking like the Titanic, and the union wanted to rearrange the deck chairs. Now that it's treading water, they're fighting over the life boats...

I was from the east during those years of BK and was as close to the front row, first seat as any employee could get. BK positioned the company to make MAJOR money. The USAirways that AWA merged with was NEVER going out of business. The company just chose to restructure IN bankruptcy; rather than outside of a bankruptcy. Going twice into BK (which was legal) was a strategy to ensure thatthe company would not just survive, but surpass the competition for years. United, DL, NW, got the idea as well, and positioned their company to restructure by taking their "free pass" and dance into bk.

Whoever gave you the idea that U was going over a cliff was and is a liar. Senior management's most important job in this BK process was to keep beating into the employees that their job would not be around the next day, and even if they gave the "bogey number demanded"...they still might not be around. They wanted the employees to believe that so labor could continue to sacrifice as much as the execs desired in negotiations. With every emergence from BK, their were huge promotions within the management ranks along with major compensation packages. The only way for the Execs to extract what they wanted was to "brainwash" the employees that the company was going over a cliff. Many of us at the table...new better; just couldn't convince the masses, and some of the union leaderships. If you recall, the investors also knew clearly that U was positioned to make hundreds of millions. So there was a huge conflict in what the employees believed and what the investors believed...blantantly obvious and clear to many of us that there was a huge contridiction coming out of the senior ranks of management.

As you now sit in current day, U made a net profit of $306 million in 2006, (majority of that profit coming from a non-merged east operation) and probably would have been much higher if they were not still writing off exclusions created from the bk process.

 

[BoeingBoy]

No offence Jim...

You're welcome to your opinion, no matter how big a load of crap it is ....no offence

Jim

 

[EastUS]

You're welcome to your opinion, no matter how big a load of crap it is ....no offence

Jim

What's absurd in the Nic award's the issues that grossly transgress against basic human societal "rules" ie: Someone in diapers becoming "senior" to one who was flying when the former's condition was in effect...and there's clearly some "crap" involved with that We'll likely not see eye to eye.. Oh "DOH be damned!!" Slotted One

Lemme see...It's Tuesday, it's raining, the moon's in Capricorn..factor in the square root of all BS "expectations"....NOW we've got a proper "seniority" list.

We agree to differ

 

[BoeingBoy]

What's absurd in the Nic award's the issues that grossly

Were you this upset about the Shuttle pilots not getting DOH? I certainly don't recall the non-Shuttle pilots organizing protests at ALPA headquarters, threatening to oust ALPA, or anything else over that "absurd" award. Just wondering it the outrage is a case by case thing....

Jim

 

[traderjake]

This explains it.....why we lost attrition due to retirement.

Brain dead hardliners like "pilot", unable to read and comprehend the Merger Policy, forced the Merger Committee to change their position to Date of Hire.

 

[skyflyr69]

PROJECT ZANZIBAR: AWA's plan for bankruptcy if investors didn't put this together.

I was from the east during those years of BK and was as close to the front row, first seat as any employee could get. BK positioned the company to make MAJOR money. The USAirways that AWA merged with was NEVER going out of business. The company just chose to restructure IN bankruptcy; rather than outside of a bankruptcy. Going twice into BK (which was legal) was a strategy to ensure thatthe company would not just survive, but surpass the competition for years. United, DL, NW, got the idea as well, and positioned their company to restructure by taking their "free pass" and dance into bk.

Whoever gave you the idea that U was going over a cliff was and is a liar. Senior management's most important job in this BK process was to keep beating into the employees that their job would not be around the next day, and even if they gave the "bogey number demanded"...they still might not be around. They wanted the employees to believe that so labor could continue to sacrifice as much as the execs desired in negotiations. With every emergence from BK, their were huge promotions within the management ranks along with major compensation packages. The only way for the Execs to extract what they wanted was to "brainwash" the employees that the company was going over a cliff. Many of us at the table...new better; just couldn't convince the masses, and some of the union leaderships. If you recall, the investors also knew clearly that U was positioned to make hundreds of millions. So there was a huge conflict in what the employees believed and what the investors believed...blantantly obvious and clear to many of us that there was a huge contridiction coming out of the senior ranks of management.

As you now sit in current day, U made a net profit of $306 million in 2006, (majority of that profit coming from a non-merged east operation) and probably would have been much higher if they were not still writing off exclusions created from the bk process.

 

[Bud8EE]

It's getting late, so I'll just assume that his number on the combined list. If so, that's his number based on the combined airline with almost 360 planes - not 220.
Chances are even better that everyone will benefit from attrition except those doing the attriting. The only question is whether or not, and if so to what degree, those expected benefits should be codified in the merged list by using them to determine placement of a particular pilot.

One only has to look at US over the last 16 years to see that there are no guarantees when it comes to expectations.

Jim

As I said where would 10 year of attrition put the 1987 hire on the East list only. It would put him in a wide body CO position. You are absolutely right that if he is now 4000 something on the combined list, the 1800 guys slotted ahead of will deny his pre-merger expectation. Case and point that the entire policy and methodology doesn't hold up to ALPA policy.

Which is why the non-policy is based not on principle but the politics in place at the time the merger policy was put place in 1991. Unfortunately, unless you stand up, or as you would put "burn the place down because you didn't get your way", you just get steam rolled. I think the East pilots have every right to stand up, and if fighting this and removing ALPA, or keeping separate contracts is what it takes to preserve their seniority and get people to wake up and see things have to change, more power to them.

 

[prechilill]

You're welcome to your opinion, no matter how big a load of crap it is ....no offence

Jim

Agreed. Opinions matter little.
In the end, we all must learn to work together... eventually the east will calm down enough to realize this.

 

[ClueByFour]

What's absurd in the Nic award's the issues that grossly transgress against basic human societal "rules" ie: Someone in diapers becoming "senior" to one who was flying when the former's condition was in effect.

As someone who is blessed not to have the concept of "seniority" around to hold back my career progression, let me write for a moment about how the real world works:

In the real word, a guy with a 737 captain job before the merger, say, at the top of his base for bidding purposes, is going to end up on the combined list in a similar position regardless of his age.

His seniority at HP buys him that. He will end up adjacent on the list to a U 737 captain who is at the top of his base for bidding purposes.

The fact that the latter might be 58 and the former 35 does not matter. It only matters to some small population of the U pilot group who seems to want to discount the success/sheer luck/whatver of the HP guys who worked at a growing carrier versus one that had done nothing but shrink for years.

Or, why should an HP Captain pull gear for someone who had no prayer of ever making Captain absent the merger? That line of thinking cuts both ways.

DOH was DOA in this fight. The furloughed were never going to jump people who brought a job to the merger. That's absolutely absurd. The 18 year first officer at U was never going to step over an active HP captain. That, too, is absurd.

The only (and I mean only) complain that is legitimate from the "real world" perspective is the attrition one on the widebodies. I personally think the HP guys should have been fenced off the 767 and 330 until the junior active pilot on the U side had had the chance to bid them, FO or Captain.

 

[A320 Driver]

No offence Jim...But you're of the Piedmont "screw DOH...I want my Slotting!!" bunch that so wholly irritated the likes of myself (PSA). You've described yourself as "fighting the good fight"...What an utter crock The "good fight" evidently equated directly to "I wan't MINE"...."Waaah!". If there were any "higher visions" within the then Piedmont community...it escaped the rest of us who sufferred from the "I got mine!!" slotting. If there was any "noble concept" as to some semblance of brotherhood for aviatiors back then..you guys tripped merrily over such with willfull, and joyous abandon...spare me the BS about "the good fight"......

I'm pleased that, in your retirement, that you've ample time to find these boards amusing....after all?=you guys were "fine" with the notion of obliterating DOH for your own "career expectations"...How'd those "expectations" go as per our pensions? Anyone with "career expectations" likely is still a firm supporter of Santa Claus. What's absurd in the Nic award's the issues that grossly transgress against basic human societal "rules" ie: Someone in diapers becoming "senior" to one who was flying when the former's condition was in effect.

PS: I'm not going to "starve" either.

Guess it depends on how you look at it. Being one of the PI boys myself, I have my own perspective on how things played out regarding the PI/U seniority integration. The PI pilots were trying to preserve their career expectations but fought an uphill battle and lost to DOH with conditions and restrictions. Personally, I don't believe those conditions and restrictions did a whole lot. The block hours were moved around the bases and the widebody orders PI had for 767s were tinkered with to take them out of play, so basically, within a short period of time, they were effectivly neutralized. I went from blockholding 727 Captain to 737 junior reserve. I did hold onto my Captain seat which is more than I can say for many others. For a solid year after that integration, few PI pilots upgraded. It was mostly PSA and U pilots taking those Captain slots with their new seniority. Since I was scheduling line checks at the time, I'm in a position to know.

DOH with conditions and restrictions is NOT the perfect solution to all seniority integrations. PSA had NO widebody aircraft. If DOH is such a perfect solution, then why were so many PSA pilot afforded left seat privileges over the PI pilots with the "career expectations"?

Everyone has their opinion, and I don't whine about the happenings of 1989 very often, but this whole thing revolves around each pilot's personal perspective on how he/she should be treated on the list. Usually that takes priority over who is getting thrown under the bus.

Just my opinion...

A320 Driver B)