As someone from the outside, I am just trying to see why people are against DOH with a fence to keep 9L guys from getting kicked out of their seats. Jr CA at XJ and 9E about the same.
Well, I think one side is fairly certain they want a category and class method (which screws Colgan a little and leaves lot's of question marks on our side at Mesaba) and the other would like to see a Relative Integration. Maybe it would help to look at this from a QOL perspective?
Assume DOH (which is what your question is about):
Colgan will see hundreds of people all the sudden in front of them. Assume a '04 DOH at Colgan and you're talking 400 people in front of him/her easily. MAYBE more like 500. Take an '06 hire who is mid level on a Q and you're talking 500. Not bad right? But that's just Mesaba. Look at Pinnacle and you can add 280 and 600 respectively. Not such a great deal for them. That's sometimes why DOH is a dealerbreaker for SOME Colgan people.
It should be said right now, in words so clear that it is impossible to be misunderstood, that most Colgan pilots want something fair. I don't know every Colgan pilot, but I firmly believe that.
Pinnacle mid level pilots could care less about DOH. Many of them will be senior to almost half my list and, by my math, 3/4 of the Colgan list. So it's good for them. However senior pilots on Pinnacle will get knocked down hundred of numbers. I think Kell put it best when he said, "Our senior guy is immediately #15 after DOH, that is unacceptable", or something to that effect. I'll be the first to admit, I've adamant with every rep I speak to that senior guys should be protected. Steve is a good guy and means well and I absolutely reflect his sentiment. One letter I wrote to our union reps in the beginning of this disaster of a merger said, "I expect you guys to take care of the senior pilots at this airline".
A lot of us, me included, look up to our senior pilots. I'm young, I can take a hit on seniority, and I'll bet you I can line up junior pilots from all three airlines that will say the same. One clown on this forum called me, "the guardian angel of pilots", now he was being derogatory and maybe that is a complex of mine, but I imagine I'm far from the only one. That's sometimes where this stuff gets confusing, a lot of this stuff is personal and gets taken personally. Sometimes that removes rational thought.