Alaska/Virgin arbitration

PhilosopherPilot said:
I don’t work there, but if that were a TA up for a vote at my shop, it would be a big fat NO vote. Scope is WAY more important than pay rate. I don’t know enough about their work rules, but the lack of scope alone is enough to vote no.
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the only problem is since they chose arbitration they don't even get to vote on it....but yes i'm in agreement with you and thats exactly the point im trying to make.
 
ian said:
more like wtf are you talking about. what does an ALPA contract have to do with anything? you are touting its a good deal because they got a raise...not even to industry standard. What you fail to mention is their scope protection was denied, their rate request was denied, pretty much everything the pilots asked for was denied. How about let's ask someone who actually works there how they feel about the decision? @Cherokee_Cruiser would you consider the ruling a good or a bad thing?
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Well neither had scope those are all status quo.

Virgin guys got a big raise and are complaining...yep sounds like pilots to me.
 
jtrain609 said:
Sounds like hiring right before 9/11.

EDIT: Let me clarify this a little bit.

In the late 90's, it seemed like the good times were finally back. Airlines were hiring. EVERYONE was hiring. United had THE contract, and was hiring like gangbusters.

I started undergraduate in late August of 2001, and I remember very clearly the dean of the college of aviation at Western Michigan coming in to tell us how that in 6 to 7 years we'd all be at United making so much money we wouldn't know what to do with it. Then once we had all that money, we'd upgrade within a few years and make even MORE money.

He wasn't being hyperbolic, this was happening. It was real.

A few weeks later I watched the world trade centers come down while I was studying for a physics test in the dorm cafeteria.

Fast forward a few years. In 2007, airlines are starting to rebound again. Continental is hiring like mad, and it's under a 2 year upgrade to the 737 in EWR. Regional have fast uprades, things are moving in the right direction again.

Then the economy comes apart in 2008 and everyone furloughs. United parks their entire 737 fleet and furloughs a massive amount of pilots (again).

Every time things really start cooking in this industry, something goes wrong. Airlines have used retirements to shrink seniority lists from the top in the past, and it'll happen again in the future.

Call me a pessimist, but we're currently riding the longest period of economic growth since the 1850's, and there has to be a correction at some point.

When that happens, I hope we're all comfortable where we sit, because the best case scenario will be that the train stops; the worst will be that it backs up.
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The difference between those things and now: retirement numbers.
 
ian said:
i hope for the sake of your fellow AA pilots you are never in a position to have any say in a contract negotiation.
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Instead of attacking what I say, you just attack me. Got it.

Swinging for the fences has been APA's blunder over and over again. In order to improve contracts one must improve them over time, not in one massive session. Take the good when you can, combined with short contract lengths, and over time you get to where you need to be.

Quite honestly I'm not sure what you guys were expecting. This was an arbitrated session in order to combine pilot groups. This wasn't a negotiated contract.
 
I have a question for my VA brethren... is there any way I could get a copy of a seniority list with dates of hire and dates of birth? I don't need names. I already know how my seniority is going to go, but I need to know how old the people are who are going in above me. I can provide my specific details and you can do the math if you're not comfortable with that request...


It's too bad. I really wanted to work here. I really wanted to like working here. I can accept that I likely won't be the highest paid, but to not have basic scope protection is something that I really can't accept. Throw in the fact that I'm fairly confident I'm about to get absolutely destroyed in the SLI, and I think it's past time to start sowing the seeds elsewhere.
 
ian said:
yeah, i don't know much about what's going on over there but no idea why you guys would agree to arbitration.
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My (admittedly weak) understanding is that it was in the Alaska CBA that any integration would be arbitrated. But I don't know that for a fact.
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
My (admittedly weak) understanding is that it was in the Alaska CBA that any integration would be arbitrated. But I don't know that for a fact.
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If you merged with say, Spirit, you would have to go through a contract amalgamation as well where you wouldn't get everything in both contracts. Its different than a full contract negotiation. If you couldn't come to an agreement, you to would have to go to arbitration.
 
Kingairer said:
If you merged with say, Spirit, you would have to go through a contract amalgamation as well where you wouldn't get everything in both contracts. Its different than a full contract negotiation. If you couldn't come to an agreement, you to would have to go to arbitration.
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That's not true. The JCBA process can be very much like a full negotiation. The ASA/XJT merger was a full JCBA negotiation, and is still ongoing.

Alaska has that in their CBA, and it is definitely NOT like that at most carriers. (Confirmed in the post above from @pete2800)
 
AAPalmTree said:
The difference between those things and now: retirement numbers.
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I hope you're right, but I don't think you are. If you assume you have to be off the bottom 20% of the list to survive a furlough, even if American hires at 1,000 a year without shrinking the airline at all, it'll take 3 years to be safe.

3 years is a long time at the end of an economic cycle.
 
jtrain609 said:
I hope you're right, but I don't think you are. If you assume you have to be off the bottom 20% of the list to survive a furlough, even if American hires at 1,000 a year without shrinking the airline at all, it'll take 3 years to be safe.

3 years is a long time at the end of an economic cycle.
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Sorry to clog up your thread guys.
But:

AA= 15,000 pilots

Another 9/11 (you say 20% furlough)= 3,000

Retire in the next 3 years= 1,937

Hiring in the next 3 years= 2,700

In three years that would put us
4,937 pilots less than now.
Plus those that should have been hired comes out to 7,637 pilots short of current staffing.

I’m a calculated pessimist. I hope for the best but plan for the worst. N. Korea could amaze us all but the numbers still don’t lie.
 
PhilosopherPilot said:
That's not true. The JCBA process can be very much like a full negotiation. The ASA/XJT merger was a full JCBA negotiation, and is still ongoing.

Alaska has that in their CBA, and it is definitely NOT like that at most carriers. (Confirmed in the post above from @pete2800)
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Skywest bought ASA in 2006. For the math challenged that was 11 years ago.
Skywest bought XJT in 2010. For the math challenged that was 7 years ago.

Apparently in your world a SEVEN YEAR merger process is preferable to ~one?!?

How did that work out for US Airways and America West?

How many contract cycles will Alaska have now that the merger is complete? At least one in 2020, probably another in 2023, and another in 2026. All opportunities to better the contract.

Or, they could just wait SEVEN YEARS (or in US Airways case roughly nine) to have an agreement, in which case they’ve been working under a lesser contract for the entire time!

Base hits people. Base hits.
 
AAPalmTree said:
Sorry to clog up your thread guys.
But:

AA= 15,000 pilots

Another 9/11 (you say 20% furlough)= 3,000

Retire in the next 3 years= 1,937

Hiring in the next 3 years= 2,700

In three years that would put us
4,937 pilots less than now.
Plus those that should have been hired comes out to 7,637 pilots short of current staffing.

I’m a calculated pessimist. I hope for the best but plan for the worst. N. Korea could amaze us all but the numbers still don’t lie.
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I'm not following your math.
 
wheelsup said:
Skywest bought ASA in 2006. For the math challenged that was 11 years ago.
Skywest bought XJT in 2010. For the math challenged that was 7 years ago.

Apparently in your world a SEVEN YEAR merger process is preferable to ~one?!?

How did that work out for US Airways and America West?

How many contract cycles will Alaska have now that the merger is complete? At least one in 2020, probably another in 2023, and another in 2026. All opportunities to better the contract.

Or, they could just wait SEVEN YEARS (or in US Airways case roughly nine) to have an agreement, in which case they’ve been working under a lesser contract for the entire time!

Base hits people. Base hits.
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um the merger isn't complete. they havent touched the SLI yet.
 
wheelsup said:
Skywest bought ASA in 2006. For the math challenged that was 11 years ago.
Skywest bought XJT in 2010. For the math challenged that was 7 years ago.

Apparently in your world a SEVEN YEAR merger process is preferable to ~one?!?

How did that work out for US Airways and America West?

How many contract cycles will Alaska have now that the merger is complete? At least one in 2020, probably another in 2023, and another in 2026. All opportunities to better the contract.

Or, they could just wait SEVEN YEARS (or in US Airways case roughly nine) to have an agreement, in which case they’ve been working under a lesser contract for the entire time!

Base hits people. Base hits.
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SkyWest was never going to merge with ASA, so that's moot.

As far as the ASA/XJT merger goes, arbitration could make things WORSE and they would still be in the same boat trying to improve 7 years later back to where they were. Arbitration is rarely good for the pilot group. It takes away the only leverage that the pilots have, and solidifies the advantage of management.

Besides, in this case, losing scope is a big freaking deal. I would rather operate with scope protections for 7 years during a JCBA negotiation as opposed to lose those protections in arbitration and spend the next negotiating cycle trying to get that genie back in the bottle. No thanks.
 
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