Originally Posted by AKCattleCarrier

My guess is the DOJ knows they have a management team experiencing massive organizational capture. AS now has resources, narratives, and most importantly egos (Bens is massive) completely wrapped up in getting this thing across the finish line. The volume of concessions may very well be significant and detrimental to our profitability. Gov employees that are extremely ideologically driven tend to think any level of collateral damage done in service of the ideology is morally justified. This management team has leaned way to far forward with this merger before regulatory approval and now feels like a rabbit hole egos simply can't back out of.

Their is this narrative that circulates this pilot group that this management team is somehow special and executes in a genuinely genius fashion. Its like a warm blanket that makes us all feel good about staying here and passing on that Delta interview. I don't buy it (anymore). AS has a disciplined management culture that runs a decent operation...but their success is largely circumstantial, stumbling onto a cornered funnel market that has proven to be a tremendous area of economic growth and is relatively recession resistant (PNW Tech, etc.).

Entertaining (depressing) experience: Flew with a CA that was in the low 1000's and 58 yrs old. Just couldn't wait to fly the 787. I asked "oh so you would be willing to downgrade to FO to fly the 787?" "Oh no I wouldn't be willing to downgrade to FO"......I didn't have the heart to burst his bubble. The heavy metal delusion has reached full psychological penetration of this pilot group.

Originally Posted by AKCattleCarrier

"Dude".....someone took the two seniority lists and stacked them based on their relative seniority on their current list. Seems pretty straightforward regardless of what program they used. Not sure what you mean by "Virgin pilots are jr to themselves". If you mean they lost seniority, than yeah, thats what I mean. AS pilots, in general, ARE GOING to lose relative seniority in this deal. I have read the ALPA merger laws, they are vague and leave a lot up to interpretation. I recently flew with a CA on the membership committee. According to him the membership committee is very worried about the SLI and is looking for ways to mitigate the damage of wide body expectations.

Also interesting side note. The same CA on the membership committee told me that current ALPA SLI philosophy is to not uses fences in favor of weighting seniority based on career expectations (whatever that means). Therefore, unlike a fence, which comes down and in theory things begin to even out, instead the placement of the pilot with a higher weighted "career expectation" remains in place for the duration of their career. So I responded "what about the career expectation of working for a company that is profitable and thriving versus a flaming dumpster fire?" He said yes that in theory is part of the weighting as well but is difficult to argue because the financial future of a company is an unknown variable vs the very known variable that HA pilots fly further in wider airplanes. So I said "what about the career expectation of being forced to commute to an island in the middle of the pacific for an entire career?" He said that is the primary line of defense they are hoping will be weighted heavily for the AS Pilots.

Originally Posted by AKCattleCarrier

I hope this is a joke. Yeah.....don't get caught up in metrics, data, finances. Airlines are only giant complex logistics operations. If your consumers were loyal, broad, or appealing enough your route structure would make money. Instead it lost $71m in the 2nd quarter as opposed to Alaska Airlines which made $220m in the 2nd quarter. Not sure if anyone told you but thats one of the quarters your supposed to make money. Hawaiian airlines is literally nothing but 787 orders and gate space/landing slots to this management team. Coming to grips with that now will make processing the next 7 years much easier.

Originally Posted by PineappleXpres

Consumers deserve to pay a competitive price. It’s natural. Not a below cost price. Enter SWA billion plus loss.

Originally Posted by vaxedtothemax

#1 They didn't lose a billion. 1st quarter loss of $231 million I believe. They've also had record revenues.

#2 What was HA's loss? $70+ million? Now extrapolate that out to where we are the size of SWA.

Ever since SWA started flying to HI the common theme has been "they can drive down our revenue by undercutting our interisland pricing at a loss to them, hurt us financially, and they are so large we can't outlast them". Then they do exactly that and we are giddy that their load factors are lower than ours? They did exactly what they planned to do out here. We haven't done anything special to deter that. I'd say quite the contrary. We've had several meltdowns in the last few years. And just to put it into perspective, I'd say SWA's strategy is working. Who is getting bought again in order to not go BK or worse? And who is possibly gaining gate space during these DOJ negotiations? I'd bet SWA gains something out of this.

Just because our CEO/COO uses SWA as their go to, feel good story. It's smoke and mirrors to elude the facts of HA being a dumpster fire right now. I mean, those two won't even mention SWA by name. Sounds like someone else I know who lives in a great big house in D.C.

Originally Posted by PineappleXpres

Again, what are the chances of pilots being displaced into HNL if that base is the most likely to see displacements? If no displacements then At least it’ll give SFO pilots to bid out of San Fran since it’s believed to be a cest pool.

Originally Posted by PineappleXpres

Realistically by the time the plane is available to bid on, that individual will be an “elect not to train” scenario anyhow.

Is the junior Captain base really projected to be Honolulu since it would be the most likely of them all to downsize? I can see CVG becoming the most senior pretty quick.

Originally Posted by GoodJet

A friend who grew up in HNL reacted with a lot of concern when she heard that AS was trying to buy HA. Like it would be bad for the customer. Similar reactions from two other friends that grew up there too. But yeah my sample size is 3 people lol.

Anyway just hopeful that both groups can remain respectful during what I am pretty well convinced will be a very difficult time for all of us.

Originally Posted by AKCattleCarrier

Ever rode the jumpseat on an American 737? These two pilot groups are going to HATE each other. This thing is 10x uglier than the VA merger.

Originally Posted by flysnoopy76

Glad I’m not the only one who thinks this is going to be a complete disaster for any Alaska pilot who has any interest in career/seniority progression.