Originally Posted by rickair7777

We're on a thought experiment here, with regard to expedited negotiated SLI... it often helps to firm up your understanding of reality by exploring the edges.

Originally Posted by rickair7777

While 20 year fences (plausible in precedent) sounds pretty bad, eventually the company would run out of native HA pilots to fly them. AS folks could then bid over, I don't think they would have to put new hires on WB's before legacy AS pilots.

Originally Posted by PineappleXpres

Okay. I respect the mental exercise logic. I’d be nervous to know such MECs that would consider that though. Especially if it was to do a solid for the company.

Originally Posted by PineappleXpres

Giving new hires fenced WBs does make sense over AS folks in the sense as it will protect the fenced by ensuring upgrades ($) and seniority progression (QOL). Not in favors of it, but if all it took was a vacancy to have senior AS hop the fence, then what is the point?

Originally Posted by rickair7777

That's why HA WB pilots would traditionally, by precedent, be granted bonus seniority. The top couple hundred of an arbitrated SLI would likely be all HAL pilots.

Originally Posted by FriendlyPilot

I can explain how the arbitrators do this, as was done in the last 3 ALPA mergers.

During the phase of intergating the lists, the VX/AS list, which is not in strict longevity order, will be reverted to a "longeity only" list, meaning longevity regardless of where your position is on the list. Names are stripped off and only longevity is used. Once this is done a computer program will mathmatically create a list also factoring in status and category and then after that they will add back in the names for each pilot group in the seniority order of wherever they are on their existing lists. The effect is that you personally may be given the longevity credit of someone senior to you, or junior to you. But it won't be blended or averaged at all. Yes, you still carry your former merger longevity baggage, but your position on your current list doesn't change because the names are put back on afterward.

The result is that legacy AS pilots do a little worse than they would have done on a HA merger if they had not merged with VX previously and legacy VX pilots do a little better if they had merged with HA as if the AS VX merger had not happened. Yes your previous merger can screw you (merging with an airline with lower longevity pilots) or benefit you (merging with an airline with higher longevity pilots).

The reason the list is decoupled for longevity, is so just as a legacy Alaska pilot will not be penalized by having a legacy Virgin pilot with lower longevity ahead of them it also doesn't give an artificial benefit of "pushing up" a legacy Virgin pilot just because they ended up senior to a legacy Alaska pilot with far more longevity. Your poersonal longevity is not relevant. Its the longevity of the person in your "stovepipe" (which you will hear alot about during your SLI)

Another reason this is done is so that HA pilots do not get a windfall, nor a benefit from whatever happened in the AS/VX merger. It literally "splits the longevity baby".

Also it is highly unlikely that "new widebody deliveries" that HA has already ordered will be flown by the AS pilot group "as they are delivered" as someone suggested. UAL/CAL arbitrators gave CAL pilots a 25 plane fence for the 787, because they had 25 planes on order, despite ZERO planes having been delivered before the merger completion date, which was October 1st 2010.

Also decoupling the date of hire longevity combined with the widebody planes might even make the current AS list have large gaps with HA pilots in it. During UAL/CAL there were two legacy CAL pilots in the same new hire class and 1 number apart on their list that ended up 400 pilots apart from each other, because of a combination of UAL having a larger numebr of 747 FOs (CAL has no 747s) and a large number of UAL pilots hired in 1995, a year CAL had no hires.

I understand the "we saved Hawaiian" and "I want a SEA base fence" etc, but ALPA merger policy doesn't care about what decisions either airlines management did before or after the merger. It only looks as pilots as being the same, regardless of the economic situation of either airline, and assumes since both pilot groups will eventually operate under the same umbrella financially with one managment, that it effectively negates whatever advantage an individual pilot group believes it had previously with regard to how well those separate airlines were managed.

Good luck!

Originally Posted by All Bizniz

The AS to HA pilot ratio is what, about 3:1? How much are you thinking, would a "top couple hundred" in a thousand pilot airline be?

Originally Posted by All Bizniz

Not sure I like that idea so I'd love to see their seniority list to get an idea of the relative seniority vs. DOH of our HA brothers.

Originally Posted by rickair7777

About 200-ish. Maybe even more. AS got the top 400-ish spots over VX, and that was a NB/NB merger.



That's almost certainly how arbitration would work, like it or not.

My understanding is that the HA longevity profile is similar to AS.

Somebody said HA hired a lot of people in the last few years? 50% of the AS list was hired in the last 8-ish years.

Originally Posted by FL410

Not sure I like that idea so I'd love to see their seniority list to get an idea of the relative seniority vs. DOH of our HA brothers.


There is a list that someone gave me that I saved it in GoodReader so it's floating around. It's out dated but should be a good reference.

Originally Posted by word302

Comparing this SLI to the AS/VX SLI is like comparing apples to sauerkraut. The longevity between VX and AS was not even in the same realm while it’s very comparable in the coming SLI. Never mind the WB/NB issue. I’m not saying the HA pilots won’t or shouldn’t get the top spots of the list, just pointing out that the two SLIs are not even in the same ballpark.