The merger has strengthened both carriers financially. According to the Company’s SEC Form 10-K filing for 2006, AW reduced its net loss from $397 million in 2005 to only $37 million in 2006 while US reported a net profit for 2006 of $345 million. The SEC Form 10-Q filing for the first quarter of 2007 states that the holding company for both carriers, US Airways Group, Inc., now has more than $2.5 billion in cash and short-term investments, a dramatic improvement for two companies that were admittedly struggling with liquidity issues in 2005.
At the May 9 session of the Joint Negotiating Committee, Scott Kirby, President of the Company, revealed to the assembled representatives of both pilot groups and ALPA National that he had headed a project code-named “Project Zanzibar” for AW in 2005 and that the legal papers for a Chapter 11 filing had been prepared and a plan developed for AW's bankruptcy in the event that the merger failed to come to fruition. Project Zanzibar was AW's only Plan B. It is now beyond dispute that the junior AW pilot, Dave Odell, and 300-400 other AW F/Os hired in 2002-05 would have been furloughed absent the US merger, as AW went into Chapter 11, perhaps never to emerge. In light of this new disclosure from the carrier’s President, there is clearly no support for the explicit premise of the Nicolau Award that these AW pilots had more job security and better promotional prospects than US pilots hired in 1988, including hundreds
who had never been furloughed for a single day.