gettinbumped

Wow, calm down! You're freaking out over there! It's very simple. Precedent for arbitration is to consider the merger date for SLI integration. That's 2010 despite what you or your lawyer says. That being the case, pilots will be placed on the seniority list based on what you could hold at that time, NOT now. In the past 3 years, LUAL has lost flying in order to keep the capacity flat for UCH. What that means is that when the list comes down, there will be a lot of LCAL pilots in seats that their 2010 seniority couldn't hold. Period. They will NOT be bumped out of those seats, and will continue to hold those seats out of what their new seniority can hold. That's life, and I don't begrudge those pilots for taking advantage of the situation they have found themselves in for the past 3 years. But for those pilots to think they are getting screwed when put in their RIGHTFUL place on the 2010 list?? Cry me a river.

Factors such as aircraft orders etc become irrelevant after a merger date because management makes decisions based on the COMBINED carrier. For example, the 757's we are parking right now are due to having UCH 737's coming on board to replace them. In a standalone operation, LUAL wouldn't have had those airplanes, so they wouldn't have parked the 757 fleet until they ordered their own narrowbodies. Capacity at both airlines most likely would have been essentially flat, based on the the rest of the industry.

Who knows, maybe the arbitrators will go totally rogue and for some reason consider 2013 to be the appropriate date, decide to staple all UAL pilots at the bottom, and I'll be back with my 19 years to raising gear for a new hire. We will see.

CALFO

I don't disagree in total with this statement. However, united has a long history and trend of retiring aircraft without replacing them. I think it is overly optimistic to think that this trend would have reversed absent a merger.

Someone earlier posted that cal pilot have enjoyed "super seniority" for the past three years. I prefer to think of it as cal pilots enjoying the long term business/fleet plan of our airline. The only growth of positions that cal has seen that we would not have seen as an independent carrier are the additional pilots needed to staff two bases. The la base was already in the works. Ual pilots have also enjoyed the additional staffing of two bases. A bit of a wash, really.

SEDPA

My post is all about what each side brought to the table ON MAD. And yes, the arbs should consider very carefully what happens on day one after the list is effective, because that is when reality bites. If you read each sides case, they really don't diverge much, and point to an outcome that keeps most everyone relative day one post integration, except for the issue of the UAL furloughees ... this is the one issue driving the very divergent proposals, and at times the very divisive and viral "chatter".

LAX Pilot

Except its already been disclosed that CAL was shrinking and furloughing. Guys on this board even admitting they were bumped out of Captain seats into FO seats. The 2010 Seniority list that the CAL side submitted showed that as well, with 1998 hires being the most junior Captains.

That type of activity is not indicative of a growing airline. The only thing that changed was the merger, which "magically" CAL flying radically improved following that. You can say it all you want, but the data all shows otherwise. Yes, if you just go 1 for 1 down the list, any smaller airline is going to do better in any SLI. You wouldn't have proposed that if you'd merged with Alaska I bet....

I find it disingenuous that most CAL pilots want to talk about where they sat in 2008 or 2013, but radically avoid where they sat in 2010 which is when the merger happened and we went under one management. Too bad, because it looks like that's going to be the baseline for all of this.

So you have 1998 hires on the CAL side as Captains, and 1997 hires on the UAL side, so that probably means those guys will end up with about the same seniority, which is about where the UAL proposed list shows it. Far from the CAL list where 1997 hires are stapled to the bottom of the list, which no one on the CAL side finds unreasonable at all.

So that's my prediction..... FWIW

gettinbumped

Fair point, and certainly possible given the Tilton-meister. It's a semantic thing, but I can also see your point about it not being "super seniority", but really it is moot. The first day the combined management had all the toys from both sides to play with, the stand alone plans no longer matter in my opinion. So any gains or losses from either seniority list are temporary at that point until the list is done. If our collective MC's (Morse and Pierce) had not botched the DOJ thing so badly, we might very well have had a contract in 2010 and a combined list in early-mid 2011. There would be a lot of present LCAL Captains that would never have been in the seats they have today. But we are where we are

gettinbumped

Then we agree. As long as we are both looking at the 2010 list, then the chips will fall where they may. There will be some LCAL pilots that are holding Captain that will be out of seniority. So be it! They will be junior for a long time, but I think that is more than made up for by the earnings they receive by keeping their seat out of their new seniority.

The LCAL proposal uses 2013 as the seniority date for integration, so there is a significant difference between the two sides. Of course, Katz wants to use PAY from 2010 to differentiate the two sides. As far as I'm concerned, pick a date. If you want to argue 2013, then argue it! And then all that discussion of hourly pay goes away. That and wanting to use CALEX seniority as Mainline seniority is our big beef. I understand the LCAL big beef being the furloughees. If I were a LCAL pilot I too would have heartburn over that part of the LUAL proposal

Airhoss

All I want to know is where do I go to get abducted by the sexy, large breasted nympho maniac, extra terrestrial chicks?

Is that so that to much to want?

Shrek

Outside the strip clubs in Houston ? That is where I would start looking.

Probe

I think you and Hoss might have better luck inside Shrek. Just sayin. LOL

CALFO

Uhh, CAL hadn't furloughed a pilot in over two years and the 147 pilots that were on furlough had been given notice of an impending return. Cal's 2008 reduction was a reaction to fuel prices and the economy and (in the scheme of things) was fairly minor. Ual's 2008 reduction was massive and indicative of much greater problems.


The time period post merger is extremely relavent given the direction both pre merger company's were heading and the dim prospect that any of the ual pilots had of getting a paycheck anytime soon.