Lawsuit filed against B6/NK

The failed merger was going to wreak havoc on my retirement seniority and seniority during the time leading up to it, but for those that don't believe there was politics behind applying the Clayton act of 1914 to the proposed merger of 2 smaller air carriers wanting to compete against the biggest 5... seriously, I'm going to leave this right here:


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I really didn't have 'the reality of living in the first 50% of Atlas Shrugged IRL' on my Bingo card for this one.

cool, but uhhh when did colgan get merged into DAL?
 
I honestly think as a 2011 hire at JetBlue, you would have been just fine in the final SLI with Spirit, within a point of where you currently are.

Well, at this point it's a moo point... a cow's opinion... it doesn't matter. But: (and I never had any control over what was going to happen)

ALPA merger policy is this:

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When '11 hires were onboarded at AzulNorte™, they had say ~2200 heavy machine operators. TheYellowBus™ Inc. had ~360 HMO's. That's a big strike against a huge number of middle seniority Azul HMO's. Unless the arbitrator's Alpha-Bits happened to spell out "Longevity weighted at 100%" the morning he was going to write his ruling. They were going to be slotted into a final list along other operators that could not even get an interview when they were hired at Azul between say '06-'13. Then there are the Yellow HMO's that were hired before Azul even was a thought in anyone's head.

Bullet Point #1... How do you weigh that... on one hand, the career expectation of HMO's at both carriers were NB, sitting on the left. One Place had flights to Europe, a robust growing network. The other one... well, see Helene's opinion circa 17Jan'24. Even before that, many Azul Potsherds were legit making arguments for huge points in favor for the Azul HMO's.

Bullet Point 3... Status and Category... Azul has JungleJets and CanaBuses... but even the Azul CanaBus has a rate comperable to a Yellow 320 driver. My argument would have been that it's either equal or weighted Azul.

In the end, no argument supercedes "fair and equitable integrated seniority list" - so in the end we would have probably seen an integration like Alaska-Virgin. And, well, the Azul Merger Committee - other than not tapping the experience of at least 2 pilots I know of that have been through a merger before - are pretty darn smart. 70/30? Longevity to 'relative' - using the ALA-VX model, maybe with some siloing thrown in. I ran a bunch of guesses. Somewhere between exactly the ALA-VX model and a 70/30 was where my best guess ended up being.

But here's my point... this hypothetical pilot I'm thinkiong of is scheduled to retire top 5% - if we remain stagnant... 3% if we grow organically. If the merger went through it'd be closer to 10%. And his progression down to 10 would be slowed greatly because of the average age of a YellowBus™ HMO. Basically, during this hypothetical person's best earning, most senior years - he was gonna be at a huge disadvantage. Because seniority is everything. He was ok with it, not happy... but ok because of the benefits of being able to compete with the top 5.

But, 'being within a point of where you currently are' is only one tiny piece of the puzzle of a career. In fact, that result would be a huge failure on he part of a fair and equatable integrated seniority list. Because it wouldn't be 'fair' at all to a huge % of Azul pilots.

Anyway, IMO. Again... now, it's just a Moo point.
 
Just because they’re smaller doesn’t necessarily EMS a big strike.

We were about ~660 versus ~1950 and a senior guy of 1979 vs 2006.

In the end, the list was actually very decent. I still think a B6/NK list would have gone down fairly smoothly without too many POed people.
 
Spirit and ULCCs cannot disappear.

Where will the airborne Jerry Springer shows go if that happens?!?
 
Just because they’re smaller doesn’t necessarily EMS a big strike.

We were about ~660 versus ~1950 and a senior guy of 1979 vs 2006.

In the end, the list was actually very decent. I still think a B6/NK list would have gone down fairly smoothly without too many POed people.

I mean, you have to know that there are a lot of guys here who are still pretty pissed about how our last merger/SLI went down. To the "relative" seniority point, in terms of these folks having been on property before VX existed. And getting spliced in below some of those folks. I don't have a dog in that fight, but it happened.
 
I mean, you have to know that there are a lot of guys here who are still pretty pissed about how our last merger/SLI went down. To the "relative" seniority point, in terms of these folks having been on property before VX existed. And getting spliced in below some of those folks. I don't have a dog in that fight, but it happened.

How old school USAir folks felt about America West pilots
 
I mean, you have to know that there are a lot of guys here who are still pretty pissed about how our last merger/SLI went down. To the "relative" seniority point, in terms of these folks having been on property before VX existed. And getting spliced in below some of those folks. I don't have a dog in that fight, but it happened.

What happened? A 1998 guy got placed next to a 2006 hire? Oh the manatee. Meanwhile, 95%+ of VXers hung out at SFO and LAX on the Bus as long as they could and then went to the Boeing, spread sporadically. Those aggrieved folks are doing just fine. Complainers gonna complain.
 
How old school USAir folks felt about America West pilots

Ironically, some of those Easties came to VX and raged against ALPA. Once ALPA was voted in summer 2015 and dues started later that year, some of them remained non-ALPA members and didn’t pay dues. Then comes Apr 2016 and Alaska is buying VX.

I told one particular ex-Eastie, “hey, you know, you’re now the Westie in this merger…”

He glared out his own window and didn’t say a word to me. LOLz


Sometimes the truth stings.
 
What happened? A 1998 guy got placed next to a 2006 hire? Oh the manatee. Meanwhile, 95%+ of VXers hung out at SFO and LAX on the Bus as long as they could and then went to the Boeing, spread sporadically. Those aggrieved folks are doing just fine. Complainers gonna complain.

Like I said, I have no dog in that fight. But I could see being annoyed at being placed next to, in your example, a person who was 8 years junior to me in the airlines (and everyone above them as well). We'll all be just fine, but I think that might be the type of scenario that @ClearedForOption was getting at. Every rumor I've heard about our possible next SLI is DoH, which would probably have ramifications for the VX-turned-virtual airline folks in the fairly specific seniority levels this whole debate originated from.....and would probably complicate it for all the rest of us too
 
Like I said, I have no dog in that fight. But I could see being annoyed at being placed next to, in your example, a person who was 8 years junior to me in the airlines (and everyone above them as well). We'll all be just fine, but I think that might be the type of scenario that @ClearedForOption was getting at. Every rumor I've heard about our possible next SLI is DoH, which would probably have ramifications for the VX-turned-virtual airline folks in the fairly specific seniority levels this whole debate originated from.....and would probably complicate it for all the rest of us too

DOH won’t happen (I would kill for DOH with HAL).

After 2 binding SLIs, and now potentially a 3rd if merger approved, I just have to laugh at the whole thing. On one hand, the union yells unity! while on the other hand, the opposing merger team proposes the worst possible SLI outcome to the arbitrator. How do you think AS felt when the VX team proposed 85% relative? And similarly, how did VX feel when AS proposed 70% DOH?

To be honest, AS was far more realistic. In the end, it was 70/30.

My problem with this process is no one truly tries. Both sides submit an extreme /polar opposite with no compromise and force an arbitration panel to choose. But it’s designed this way, so ALPA can wipe its hands clean and walk away without lawsuits.
 
My problem with this process is no one truly tries. Both sides submit an extreme /polar opposite with no compromise and force an arbitration panel to choose. But it’s designed this way, so ALPA can wipe its hands clean and walk away without lawsuits.
Just curious, do you have an @alpa.org email address?
 
This • is stressful as •. We as a community would be doing the participants in this merger/non-merger a great service by simply taking a deep breath and giving our mouths a break. Nobody knows what would have happened.

I don't really post here anymore at least at the moment due to life and well, acute DPE anxiety related disorder. So I just lurk and rando pop up here and say something from time to time. I figured that this might be one of those times. I don't even work for Spirit/Jetblue and some of you are speculating and chomping at the bit on this issue. Peoples jobs, health, families and abilities to take care of themselves and said families is possibly at stake and some of you @Cherokee_Cruiser seem to be popping large quantities of 20 mg. cialis pills, waiting patiently for the party to start.

I might remind you, (general you, not specific you), though I shouldn't have to, that we have SAVE pilots on this forum. Good f-ing people the likes of @skypilot6 who I haven't spoken to directly related to this issue, but I'm sure that he's completely stressed the "f" out right now, especially with his growing family. I'm sure some of the comments in this thread aren't exactly helping.

Let's all be respectful please, with your post and not a low rent sociopath. Some of you are pissing me off with your post in this thread from the shadows and hell I'm not even 121. So, imagine all those that are, that this will directly affect. Be decent and kind to people, please. Especially during all of these mergers. Reach out and check on them, see how they're doing. Ask if there is anything that you can do for them during this trying time. Saying for example, that you're going to short SAVE, isn't helpful right now, just sayin'. Keep the quiet voice, quiet.

Back to lurking.
 
You’re upset that I said a B6/NK SLI would actually turn out okay? That’s supposed to be a positive comment. Unless you mean that I shouldn’t be saying this because the merger was called off by the DOJ.

I didn’t say anything about shorting SAVE. On the contrary, I have a large stock position in the company.
 
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