It wasn't as bad as it could have been, but in the end we have given AMR 24 years (16+8) of flat pilot costs. We have also just spent 16 years not raising the bar and just voted to lower the bar for the next 8 years. It was not a big win, it was what we had to do.
I disagree with your analysis of the 16-year deal, but setting that aside for a moment, let's talk about what a "win" really is.
In order to determine whether something (or someone) is a success, you have to compare to a reasonable benchmark. For example, in the investing world, money managers are judged based upon their performance against a generally recognized benchmark for whatever the goal of their fund is. A manager responsible for managing a broadly diversified portfolio of equities would generally be benchmarked against the S&P 500, for example. So, let's say you give this fund and its manager $100k to manage for five years. During this five years, the stock market tanks and the S&P craters by 30%. However, your fund's manager was smart enough to see it coming, and pulled a bunch of money out to put into cash and low-risk investments and kept the losses to only 10%. Your original investment of $100k is down to $90k, but everyone else you know has lost far more by investing in other funds. Was your money manager a success? Did he "win?" I think it's clear that he did. He beat his benchmark by double digits and saw to it that your money performed better than everyone else's. It was still a loss, but expecting anything other than a loss in such an environment is unrealistic, or downright delusional.
Going into bankruptcy at an airline is no different. First you have to set up reasonable expectations by determining a benchmark. For our industry, this is pretty simple since just about every airline has been through bankruptcy in the past 30 years. We know what the typical results are, we know how the courts rule, and we know what our leverage (or lack thereof) is. As a result, we know that realistic expectations (our benchmark) is drastic cuts to pay, benefits, and work rules. So, performance better than that should be considered a "win." Expecting to get pay raises and benefits improvements when everyone else has taken cuts is delusional, so setting that as your benchmark for success would make absolutely no sense.
In the case of Eagle, actual loss to pilot compensation was virtually nothing. A bargaining process that has worked well over 16 years was maintained. Job security, especially in light of what is likely in Eagle's future, was incredibly improved. When compared to any reasonable benchmark, classifying this as a success is the only reasonable conclusion.
