Originally Posted by GQpilot

So Tomahawk are you a fool or am I missing some hidden reason or agenda on your part?

G

Originally Posted by cactusmike

Irony, irony. US Airways pilots complaining about taking a hit to bring AA pilots out of a 1113 contract. Just who do you think took a hit with the AWA/ US merger? If we had gotten a joint contract ( we will not see one now) it would have been a windfall for the East pilots at the expense of the West. As a matter of fact, the only pilots that have benefitted from this deal have been the East.

Just sitting on the sidelines waiting for the fun to begin.

Originally Posted by GQpilot

That's right. The original AWA management team excluding Mr. McClleland (very smart guy, unfortunately passed from cancer) has become verrrrrryyy wealthy. Notice I don't say overpayed, since compared to other CEOs that don't know what they're doing, they're not.

East pilots, still have jobs, new aircraft placed east (growth), and even have their own personal union that only catters to their pilot group.

West pilots: What do we have for youuuu!

The Price is Right losing horn - YouTube

Ohhhhh, I'm sorry. Don't feel too bad we have some nice consolation prizes. Like this Costco bulk pack of KY Lube! One big Tube O' Lube for each future merger!

G

Originally Posted by Tomahawk58

What advantages do you offer for a merger led by US Airways during American’s bankruptcy, as opposed to an American-led merger after American emerges from bankruptcy?

Parker: “One certainty – for whatever reason, part of how American has gotten themselves into this predicament is hoping that the world stands still while they get other problems fixed. And the world doesn’t stand still.* There’s no guarantee, while we’re here today, that we’ll be here a year from now to do this. A lot of things can happen that none of us know.

“But I know in this business that things could go on that could make it so that this deal could never get done. Once everybody is out in it’s a public company and American, okay, let’s merge, nothing can stop at that point a United or Delta from saying why don’t we just go acquire US Airways?

“We’re fiduciaries. If our company’s for sale, it’s for sale, and we’ll sell it to the highest bidder, and American probably wouldn’t win that. That’s the big one – the certainty of getting it done. That could be incredible. That would be obviously a situation where it would be hard for American to ever recover from, if United or Delta got themselves to that size of scale and American had passed on this opportunity.

“On top of that, there are a number of things you can do in bankruptcy that you can’t do outside it. We don’t actually know what all of those are because we haven’t had the chance to go through all of American’s confidential information.

“I’m certain that if we were working together that we would clean up and integrate before we emerge instead of after the fact saying, ‘Gosh, I wish we’d taken care of that in bankruptcy. Because bankruptcy does provide that opportunity, to make sure you’ve got all your contracts where you want them and have the ones the want in place and don’t have the contracts that aren’t economical. That’s what it’s for.

“It’d be a shame to go through that process and then find yourselves wanting to merge while you’re at the state where you hadn’t done that.”

When you talk to bondholders/creditors, what questions do they raise most?


He is not in this for AAer's or his own folks for the matter either!

Originally Posted by R57 relay

I think we can all agree that without the US/AWA merger neither company would be in a position today of looking at taking over AA. Whether that helps or hurts us, I don't know.

Originally Posted by R57 relay

Growth, that's funny. On the June 2005 bid the east had 2782 line pilots. This month's bid had 2688 line pilots and 164 of them are on the E190, which doesn't count toward the min fleet. For good reason. So that is 258 less pilots on the 737 and bigger A/C, or about 9%. We have take more A330s which help the numbers and the E190 fleet has added some management pilots, but it's hardly "growth".

The west may have contracted more, I don't have your numbers. But one thing have to remember is that the east was massively understaffed when the merger was announced. Don't believe me? Go look at the pilots per A/C on the Nicolau award.

The west pilots tend to judge this merger by comparing what they have to what they had back in May 2005. The problem with this view is that most believe you would not been able to hold on to what you had. Doug Parker, the CEO of AWA, not the original US Airways, has said that over and over and that we are all better off with the merger than without. That you indeed would not have been able to hold on to what you had. What the east had that helped things look better was the start of the attrition before the age 60 rule changed.

I think we can all agree that without the US/AWA merger neither company would be in a position today of looking at taking over AA. Whether that helps or hurts us, I don't know.

Originally Posted by cactiboss

So why is it that the east get's all the benefits while the west furloughs, downgrades, stagnates and has to fight a union that is trying to destroy them? Ahh don't bother, the whole world knows what scum you all are.

Originally Posted by GQpilot

I agree, that in the long run the US/AWA merger helped both companies. The east compared to the situation they were in has seen the majority of the benefits. I was holding a decent line and we were hiring 20 a month prior to the merger. Since the merger, I've moved backwards. We in the west are expected to take the majority of the pain with the mergers because we are the younger group. I don't mind a 50/50 relationship, but this 10/90 stuff is bull*(%^.

G

Originally Posted by R57 relay

I understand why you feel that way and like I said you may have shrunk more, I don't know your numbers. But if you look at ours, we didn't grow, as I told cacti, our attrition finally outran our shrinkage.