Of those working for Pinnacle at the time of the concessionary TA, who would have actually resigned had the bankruptcy court issued its own terms on the pilots? I'm just really curious to know how many pilots would have worked under such terms.
I have a theory that most people of all occupations (labor especially) will work for peanuts if given the right pep talk. I've seen it in aviation, manufacturing, and now construction.
Luckily we stopped that nonsense late in the game and it forced Pinnacle back to the table. The judge publicly blasted them for not negotiating them and hinting that's the only reason he couldn't slap them with a "negotiating in bad faith" tag. Even if he had found them as such, it wouldn't have mattered, the company was running out of DIP funds (purposefully).
You have to understand that while many pilot groups claimed they had a higher value contract than the Pinnacle JCBA they are misinformed or purposefully lying. The JCBA soft pay was a huge part of the of our contract and the BK couldn't be made to understand that. When the BK judge was going to have the company change "a few things" and come back to him, he was going to let them go ahead and gut the soft pay. Soft pay means a lot on this contract. We signed a 7 year deal to keep the soft pay, betting that the company would put themselves in a bad position with the proposed pay rates and have to come back an negotiate.
/you may not care about the below
That's a style Nagel and Wychor have always had success with. A lot of guys are painfully stupid when we sign something that may not make sense to either pilots or management, but later on the light goes on above their head when they realize the company needs to change something "stupid" in the contract becaues they're screwed (and so are we a little) and it has caused them to come back later and give us what we wanted. The 3 day pickup restriction is an example.
/back on topic
There would be an additional hit on the paycheck for the reserve and the line holders not having the soft pay from the BK judge. I think you would have seen an exodus higher than what we've had (more than 1100 gone as of last SLI).
To answer you're question directly: Few if any would resign. It is stupid to if you pay your own bills. If you live with mom and dad or your wife makes great money maybe. Most of us live in the real world... I would have gone as far away as Virgin for a job if I can't have the soft pay protection. Instead of 1100 gone to date you'd probably see more like 1500. As soon as you go on reserve at this company or a bottom line holder you might as well go to ASA and start all over again.
Internet tough guys do that "I'll quit!!!" 9E guys are right back where they started. 9L still had a pay raise. XJ got screwed in BK again. People quit 9L and 9E in droves when there were better paying jobs. When there are better paying jobs than what you have you move on, that's the order of things. No one is wealthy in this industry, save a few, who can just quit or resign because of such and such.
The only group I've ever heard of ready to quit during a BK ask that was imposed on them was Mesaba. They had rental cars provided by the union standing by at the outstations. Mesaba/MAIR never imposed the ask, they were scared to death we'd all walk off and leave their Saabs at the outstations. Back then though, MAIR had hundreds of millions in the bank, Pinnacle couldn't make their payroll every two weeks.
Because Virgin is only "slightly" better than Pinnacle?
