Whidbey

Is it your position that AA management would have been happy to come to the table with a reasonable offer four years ago had APA been more "proactively engaged"? Your statment seems to imply that the negotiating methods of the APA are wholly are largely to blame for the lack of progress at AA.

I don't think it's valid to point to the slow pace in the AA negotiations as a failure of their union. The delay tactic given to management by the RLA was going to be used as long as it worked to the advantage of AA management, adversarial relationship or no. I think it is entirely more likely that AA management's willingness to negotiate has been brought about by the soon to be changing business envorinment and overall state of the industry (pilot retirements, the United Continental merger, the increasing profitability of Delta) rather than any change in APA methods.

In my book, the ability of APA and the American pilots to fight through this delay is to be applauded. It was (IMHO) probably necessary to achieve the best possible outcome.

Bucking Bar

The force moves in mysterious ways young Luke Skywalker ...

Would you be surprised if this afternoon the Company announced another fee for departure agreement to happen at some point in the future ranging up to say, 130 seats ... while simultaneously the Delta MEC announces a grievance settlement resolving the Republic Single Carrier issue ... something about Section 1B40 wasn't really enforceable and we'd have lost if we tried ... but hey, we all got a 5% mid contract raise and nobody will get furloughed ... .

The irony is, they would blame folks like you, because you made such a stink about Republic that they had to do something. That's why Brakechatter still hates me, because I understood the problem, he blames me for the result.

Sadly after seeing Eagle give up their entire Section 1 for a flow through to nowhere, nothing would surprise me.

Short and focused, the force is, young Jedi Knight, uuurrrgggghh

Elvis90

I would say yes, particularly when you factor in the slot swap approval.

Elvis90

If a TA like this were presented to the pilot group, it would overwhelmingly get voted down...and as you said accelerate the change to new representation.

maddogmax

Not trying to pick a fight, but I would be surprised if the avg 330 pilot flew more than 75 hrs. per month.

slowplay

Nope, not my position at all. Let's look at the results for comparison:

July 21, 2006

APA sends Section 6 notice.

APA: 52% raise, improvements to all sections of the contract
AMR: productivity gains, small improvements to some sections of the contract.

JULY 22, 2011

APA result: No contractual changes
AMR result: No pilot cost increases.

That's 5 years of negotiation. Did AMR's strategy work? Did APA's strategy work? What has the APA "fought through"?

Delta and NWA pilots negotiated during this same time frame. The results have been different. Hawaiian, AirTran, Alaska, and Spirit have negotiated during this time period. Spirit was even released to strike. What were the results?

Columbia

Bingo-why they make the big bucks. Bag fees, snack fees, fees for TV, credit card revenues, change fees-ALL of which SWA doesn't benefit from.

slowplay

What I used was pay hours, not block hours. 85 hours was a pretty good number (includes premium pay, vacation, training, etc.)

forgot to bid

Make her 20 and give her a green top and she looks like the girls that sell ice-cream in CHS.

exeagle

That's fine if you don't. All you have to do is call him up and ask him what he expects out of our next contract. He'll tell you the same. Let us know what he says.