Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
How do you figure that?
AirTran/SWA Seniority Integration Deal
- Thread starter SlumTodd_Millionaire
- Start date
How do you figure that?
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
At both properties you would be flying narrow body 100 to 150 seat aircraft on domestic short haul and transcon routings. At both companies upgrade was in a similar time frame. Both companies had similar benefits and scheduling rules. Sure, the pay was very different, but that is a red hearing as far as career expectations go.
Cptnchia
Dissatisfied Customer
Because the career expectation at both is to be a captain in a 737.
WacoFan
Bigly
We have heard over the years about in-house Unions and their relative impotence as compared to ALPA - sometimes quite loudly from the OP of this thread.
So - is this an ALPA loss? SWAPA certainly seems to have driven the much better deal for their membership on the face of it - but that is simply looking out the outcome. So, what strengths does SWAPA have in this negotiation that ALPA's merger committee basically caved like this? Is this more about SWAPA strength, ALPA weakness, or some combination of the two?
So - is this an ALPA loss? SWAPA certainly seems to have driven the much better deal for their membership on the face of it - but that is simply looking out the outcome. So, what strengths does SWAPA have in this negotiation that ALPA's merger committee basically caved like this? Is this more about SWAPA strength, ALPA weakness, or some combination of the two?
How is fair defined though, when it comes to one carrier acquiring another?
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
It pains me to no end to post a link to the Ford and Harrison website, but the best description I've found of the Allegheny-Mohawk ruling is there.
http://www.fordharrison.com/shownews.aspx?show=2888
EDIT: If you don't want to read through the legal mumbojumbo, the term is "fair and equitable" which is pretty much undefined past that. ALPA has used the terminology of no windfalls for a pilot group (which a 12%-20% bump in seniority certainly is). Arbitrators have used other methodologies as a test, but in general the original statement is the guiding principle.
pullup
Homewrecker
That's my thinking on why it's relatively fair. The age of each airline, who is buying whom, payscales, etc. ATN even said he would receive a 35% raise, that should take the sting out of the upgrade times. Maybe my duck is wet though.
SpiceWeasel
Tre Kronor
I had figured ALPA was blowing smoke when they said that they had an industry leading scope clause at ATN. Especially since ALPA seems to think that outsourcing is awesome. I'm ecstatic that SWAPA canceled the SKW "code share". Hope the integration is more fair but ALPA doesn't need to continue its destructive path of siding with management.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
Erm...this isn't a scope issue, it's a SLI issue.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
There will be a vote for who will represent the combined pilot group.
SpiraMirabilis
Possible Subversive
It's not as though AirTran was floundering and would have gone under if not for SWA.
SmoothLanderJ
Well-Known Member
MikeD said:
IMO there shouldn't be this big of a disparity in the SLI integration purely based on pay and who acquired who. AT certainly isn't coming to the table empty handed.
Matt13C
Well-Known Member
Got ya.
Never said they were, I am just not familiar with how the integration of two union lists works with two competing unions when the purchasing union represents almost 3 times the number pilots of the company being purchased.
How much capital is ALPA willing to put into this process when they know their days are numbered regardless of what type of deal they negotiate.
How about a little SWA pilot side here for you guys. Let's get some facts straight. There is no 20% bump for any SWA pilots, they say 12 % but that was at the snapshot, after adding new hire pilots the real bump is maybe 8-9%. There is a ATN captain that upgraded in July of this year, and he is seat protected and also in the bottom 15% of the intergrated seniority list. If this was a straight DOH intergration, only about 55% of current airtran captains could hold a captain seat at SWA, less if you don't count Lance captains. Every ATN pilot is getting a huge pay increase, quality of life increase, better company, brighter future. SWA pilots are getting a small seniority bump that is useless unless there is some MAJOR growth, which our CEO has said will not happen untill we hit 15%ROI. I made more than 160k as a 4-5 year FO at SWA, I don't work that much, pick up a couple extra days that are easy a month, that was about 730 flight hours for the year. That is better than most ATN captains from what I hear, I don't get a look at their W-2s. We have alot of senior FOs making more than 200k. I will have over 150 atn captains junior to me making captain pay. I went through the interview, bought the type, and spent extra years at my crappy regional to get over 1000pic to just be looked at. Now there are guys who are jumping ahead of me getting more pay and huge gains, and I get NOTHING, no protections, just status quo. Gains on the SWA pilot side are listed in the 10s of millions, gains on the ATN side listed over 1 BILLION dollars, doesn't sound to fair and equitable to me. Those are just some facts from another perspective.
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
Yeah... that's where a lot of people are having problems I think.
And remember, payrates don't matter in an SLI.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Is there an independent source to correlate these numbers? If so, it's a good counter to the AirTran folks who are only presenting the straight seniority aspects, rather than the other benefits, including financial.
jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
Because every pilot in the history of the world, to include the Wright brothers, wish they worked at Southwest. Hell I'll bet you there are astronauts that are thinking to themselves, "Man, as soon as I get myself some Shuttle Orbiter time, then maybe Southwest will like me!"
Get over yourself.
Hey JTrain, I don't know you, I don't care to know you but, I am not on a high horse. I worked hard to get where I am at. I didn't say everyone wanted to work at SWA. I would have gone to Fedex or UPS, those where the places I had my app in at. Back in the day SWA was where people went cuz they couldn't get on anywhere else. So before you go judging people maybe you should get to know them big guy. I knew I shouldn't have posted on this forum, just because of response like that. Last post, bash away on me for stating some FACTS.