Alaska Hawaiian Merger

///AMG said:
Forgot to mention this, but it is interesting. I mean I haven’t gotten a 1st class in a few years now either so *knocks on wood*. But there has to be a reason that so many super senior pilots are on the right seat in SEA. I get QOL for the lower end of that, but most of those folks would have great QOL in the left seat too. Which leaves medical, training failure, fear of upgrading, or just not wanting the upgrade. I’d imagine there are a few in the last 3 of those categories, but #1 and #2 have to be the biggest group occupying that space. So yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how the August bid pans out.
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Ehhhh…. That seems kinda overblown. But maybe
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Not cease to exist. But a stand-alone Hawaiian’s main problem was losing money post Covid. Hawaii hasn’t recovered fully. That’s fact. Esp Asia, and only getting worse under Trump.

The problem is too many widebodies in HNL with not enough profitable places to fly them. That’s why AS plan makes sense, remove HNL widebody capacity, re-deploy to SEA and try international Asia/Europe from SEA. A stand-alone Hawaiian couldn’t pull that off.


Their standalone future was that of Spirit. A trip to BK, shedding planes and employees, and then emerging smaller but stronger.
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Even with your logic the majority of the HAL pilots have a pretty solid argument for “career expectations” on widebody aircraft. Mr Duck spelled it out pretty clearly, all though it’s just his opinion it’s probably not too far off.

I’m really hopeful that the AS proposal isn’t just a temper tantrum about HAL ceasing to exist. Since that will go over like a lead balloon in a court of law setting.
 
///AMG said:
Forgot to mention this, but it is interesting. I mean I haven’t gotten a 1st class in a few years now either so *knocks on wood*. But there has to be a reason that so many super senior pilots are on the right seat in SEA. I get QOL for the lower end of that, but most of those folks would have great QOL in the left seat too. Which leaves medical, training failure, fear of upgrading, or just not wanting the upgrade. I’d imagine there are a few in the last 3 of those categories, but #1 and #2 have to be the biggest group occupying that space. So yeah, it’ll be interesting to see how the August bid pans out.
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What happens if they can't hold a 1st class medical? LTD?
 
BobDDuck said:
What happens if they can't hold a 1st class medical? LTD?
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IMG_1178.jpeg
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
Even with your logic the majority of the HAL pilots have a pretty solid argument for “career expectations” on widebody aircraft. Mr Duck spelled it out pretty clearly, all though it’s just his opinion it’s probably not too far off.

I’m really hopeful that the AS proposal isn’t just a temper tantrum about HAL ceasing to exist. Since that will go over like a lead balloon in a court of law setting.
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Yeah that can’t be our negotiating point, I fully agree. It’s a theoretical at best. I do think whatever happens, does need to protect their WB flying for sure.
 
///AMG said:
It’s quickly becoming my favorite burger. Not because i actually like it, but because it is the only burger in my life, and by definition has to therefore also be my favorite
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This is….surprisingly logical.
///AMG said:
I actually do like the Elsa/Moana idea, and I fully fully fully support a JNU full pilot base. As many of you as they can pack into a base. I love it :)
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all 4 of us!
 
///AMG said:
Yeah that can’t be our negotiating point, I fully agree. It’s a theoretical at best. I do think whatever happens, does need to protect their WB flying for sure.
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Lifetime fencing? How do you accomplish that without a massive seniority bump? You can’t.

HAL pilots have a pretty solid argument for a massive seniority bump.
 
BobDDuck said:
What happens if they can't hold a 1st class medical? LTD?
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I imagine they go on LTD. Knowing a little bit about the LTD process via a friend, I believe they would need to do and exhaust whatever avenues the medical folks have to potentially get them back to a first class. But after that, I guess it would just depend on the terms of whatever disability insurance situation they are in (company or company + ALPA policy).
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
Lifetime fencing? How do you accomplish that without a massive seniority bump? You can’t.

HAL pilots have a pretty solid argument for a massive seniority bump.
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Perhaps you guys can educate me where i am wrong here……but couldn’t you just put the terms of the fence out to like 20 years or whatever would put the most junior person affected into mandatory retirement? Obviously that would be met with pushback from our own pilot group, but it would be fine with me. But again, maybe that isn’t how the mechanics work?

Additional thought, and here is what I’d be cool with. They get seniority bump, but with strings attached, ie cannot bid into any existing AS base/fleet for the duration of their careers. I think that would pretty much guarantee the status quo.
 
///AMG said:
Perhaps you guys can educate me where i am wrong here……but couldn’t you just put the terms of the fence out to like 20 years or whatever would put the most junior person affected into mandatory retirement? Obviously that would be met with pushback from our own pilot group, but it would be fine with me. But again, maybe that isn’t how the mechanics work?

Additional thought, and here is what I’d be cool with. They get seniority bump, but with strings attached, ie cannot bid into any existing AS base/fleet for the duration of their careers. I think that would pretty much guarantee the status quo.
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That would be awesome. Hopefully that’s what happens. IDK anything about ALPA guidance in regards to this though.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
What in the actual ???

How can they hold a 2nd class but not a 1st? What medical condition do hundreds of FOs have?
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I flew with one 20+ years senior to me who only had a second class. After a few days he said it was the reason he didn’t upgrade.

There’s always Dr FogAMirror… but it’s possible that the FAA would know about an existing condition that wouldn’t allow for a class one.

🤷‍♂️
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
I flew with one 20+ years senior to me who only had a second class. After a few days he said it was the reason he didn’t upgrade.

There’s always Dr FogAMirror… but it’s possible that the FAA would know about an existing condition that wouldn’t allow for a class one.

🤷‍♂️
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Sure. I’ll buy that for one FO. Or two. Or three. Maybe 20. But hundreds? Get outta here, that’s nonsense.
 
BobDDuck said:
That is a very real possibility that a lot of HAL pilots (not just WB FOs) could get a bump on their seniority (which could equate to some kind of formula based on DOH or different method). I'm a good example of that. I'm about 33% on the seniority list at an airline that is 60% widebodies (assuming all 20 787s... 54% widebodies if you just look at the aircraft on property now). On a combined list, based strictly on date of hire, I'd be right around 34%... But only about 12% of our aircraft are widebodies. If I don't get some kind of protection (either via fences or a seniority boost), and I were to get displaced because they move my fleet somewhere else, it is unlikely that I would ever get back into a widebody, or at least not for a long time.

So it just depends on the method (or combination of methods) used, and how much they mitigate the potential for harm. In my case, where I already hold the left seat of a widebody, the harm would be actual so there would (in theory) need to be more of a protection in place. For somebody who is 90% on the list and currently a 717 FO, the potential harm is slightly more theoretical as they can't currently hold a widebody Captain seat. But maybe they could hold the FO seat (or could soon), so there is (under the Career Expectations portion) some need to provide a level of protection to them as well.

This is the ugly part of mergers, especially ones that are unbalanced in one of the three legs of the stool.
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Here’s the problem with that. Of your 37 widebodies, 10 of them (a solid third) are a CONTRACT basis, one that Amazon could decide to cancel and not renew. Or one that AS management might decide they want no part in.

Yet, you’re asking for permanent seniority bump based on these 10 contract planes - planes that aren’t even owned/leased by HAL.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Here’s the problem with that. Of your 37 widebodies, 10 of them (a solid third) are a CONTRACT basis, one that Amazon could decide to cancel and not renew. Or one that AS management might decide they want no part in.

Yet, you’re asking for permanent seniority bump based on these 10 contract planes - planes that aren’t even owned/leased by HAL.
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Well, I'm glad it only took you about 3 hours to go from "I can't control this so I'm just not going to worry about it" to "CONTRACT LIFT DAMMIT!".

And just for the record, those 10 airframes are leased to Hawaiian and are on the certificate.
 
BobDDuck said:
Well, I'm glad it only took you about 3 hours to go from "I can't control this so I'm just not going to worry about it" to "CONTRACT LIFT DAMMIT!".

And just for the record, those 10 airframes are leased to Hawaiian and are on the certificate.
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Well I was just saying :)
You sounded pretty strong about your opinions of where it should land.


You have seen the history of Amazon and its contract flying right? It isn’t pretty.



I’m (mostly) not worried.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Here’s the problem with that. Of your 37 widebodies, 10 of them (a solid third) are a CONTRACT basis, one that Amazon could decide to cancel and not renew. Or one that AS management might decide they want no part in.

Yet, you’re asking for permanent seniority bump based on these 10 contract planes - planes that aren’t even owned/leased by HAL.
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Also consider the amount of negotiating capital that we will need to burn just to get the HA guys up to industry standard pay. They are very far behind on both NB and WB rates. It's a big lift and they are looking at massive raises.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
Sure. I’ll buy that for one FO. Or two. Or three. Maybe 20. But hundreds? Get outta here, that’s nonsense.
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I’d agree it’s unlikely to be “hundreds”. But I’d guess it to be the case for at least a number of the sub-500 seniority folks on our FO list.
 
Skåning said:
Also consider the amount of negotiating capital that we will need to burn just to get the HA guys up to industry standard pay. They are very far behind on both NB and WB rates. It's a big lift and they are looking at massive raises.
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I heard the same thing about VX pilots when I was just wanting to be left alone sitting in the right seat over 7 years ago… 🤣
 
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