Fly4FunAA

Exactly. Just because I’m new to Southwest doesn’t mean I’m new to the industry. As someone who just came from the regionals, I’m glad to be at a major and I could care less about short term regional pay increases. Life is still far better here than back there. And it will get significantly better.

Lewbronski

We will not necessarily "get ours."

Look at United. More than four years in negotiations. No mediation. The result was the Tumi TA. Will they recall their MEC and exec's and end up with an entirely better TA? Maybe. It remains to be seen. It's also possible that they will end up with a slightly revised Tumi TA 2 51% solution. But even if they do recall and replace, you're talking at least a year and probably longer before a decent TA is achieved.

A good contract does not just happen. Management is more than happy to play the delay game and wear us down with "negotiation fatigue," when 51% or more of us are willing to accept something, anything better over waiting more months or years. They are very good at that strategy.

And, more to the point, the idea with filing for mediation yesterday is not so that we immediately gain a negotiating advantage. That's not the way the RLA works. Filing for mediation is better viewed as planting a seed that doesn't yield a harvest until 2.5 or 3 years later. If we want to have a harvest 2.5 or 3 years from now, we need to file for mediation today. If we had wanted to have a harvest today, we would have needed to file for mediation 2.5 to 3 years ago. We didn't. So now we must wait or settle for our own personal version of the Tumi TA.

Our pilot group's lack of understanding of the RLA and how it works is an ENORMOUS weakness.

Caveman

The CostCo bag is popular with PHX & DAL Captains here though, not the Tumi

Noconcessions

We have the P.O.S. contract because that's what the 84% voted for.

mulcher

Absolutely and be prepared to be underwhelmed again.