GoCats67

As a UA guy I can tell you that everybody over hear I have talked to cares.

We already have two of the big reasons you should vote NO on this TA in our contract. Both of which we desperately want to get rid of in our next one!!! If you guys can't hold the line, then we are screwed.

We have the 75% of OE need can be blocked from FO bidding and as a 747 FO it absolutely sucks. Choice Flying trips are blocked every month, leaving less flying trips for senior folks to bid on. So, more senior folks are forced into Bunkie (IRO) slots. Increasing the likelyhood that you will get to go back to the training center for landings, YIPEEEEEEEE!!!! Also build less lines, so you need less FOs, forcing folks on to reserve that should hold a line and denying bids to the next folks in line that want to upgrade. That of course cascades down the rest of the seniority list and like the preverbial snowball going down a hill gains size as it goes, you end up with folks on the outside that can't get in. It is a huge give to the company!!!!

The other part that we already have is the relaxed counting for JV/Scope. If you want to know how bad it is, the best example I can give is the LAX to Germany routes. We used to fly a 777 from LAX to FRA, but we don't anymore. Bad route you say, I laugh in your general direction, it is a great route!!!, just ask Lufthansa. They are currently flying an A380 from LAX-FRA, a 747-800 from LAX-FRA and an A340 from LAX-MUC. Thanks to our brilliant JV/Scope that is perfectly legal even though we don't get any metal on the route. A 757-200 counts the same as an A380!!!! You have got to be kidding me!!!!!!

Again, these are two of the sections that we swallowed a horse pill over in our last agreement because we didn't have a joint contract and needed to get one to move our group along as one. Our last agreement was a hold your nose and vote yes, because it wasn't really voting yes on a contract as much as it was voting yes to end the separation of the two pilot groups! There is no way our current contract would pass on its own merits and I think you would hear that pretty consistently from the UA group. The gives that you have in your TA are very painful, anyone who tries to tell you differently is a either a Bold Faced Liar or completely ignorant. Those are the only two choices.

If you vote yes on this and are in the bottom 3/4 of the seniority list, I think you will see that, despite the pay raises, your W-2 earnings will actually be lower than they would have been once the widebody growth stagnation is fully realized! Pay raises with no growth on the top end are worse than no pay raises but real Widebody growth!

We had a huge number of outside compelling reasons to vote for a less than ideal contract 3 years ago. Those are gone for us and I don't see anyway that we would vote for your TA and I don't see any reason that you should either!