LAX Pilot

^^ You should read the arbitration award. Its over man. ^^

Regularguy

LAX Pilot

"Seriously? You name a couple management people as well as a couple lousy IT systems and that proves CAL bought United?"

It really doesn't matter who wrote the check considering who's running the show and what we look like, does it!

1. ex-UAL used to be "Domiciles" now it's "Bases."
2. ex-UAL Flight Operations, now "Chief Pilot's Office" (pretty cold tells us who its all about doesn't it).
3. Contract, ex-UAL strict limits on flying and wording to avoid ambiguity, now we have LPA (line production average) guarantees some one will get paid less and others more.
4. ex-CAL does get ex-UAL cleaning expenses.
5. ex-CAL does get downtown hotels and more time behind door.


LAX it's time to smile, we work for the "Sad Bird with the Brass Ass!" (figure that one out).

and quit taking yourself so seriously, it is what it is and if you thought the "thunder guppy" was the cats meow then guess what? Cramped cockpits and all night flights without proper food are becoming the norm.

I'm hoping they'll bring back the "Pub."

ex-UAL, "Sorry Bub no pub!"

Sunvox

Second Quarter 2010? When was the merger announced? It was announced in May 2010 which is the 2nd Quarter. Again you twist facts to suit your needs.

No weaselly voice just plain use of logic which is escaping your mind.

You are arguing about particular quarters earnings and a single Grievance. You are driven into the weeds because the higher level analysis is not worth examining in terms of your argument. What exactly is it you want? Do you want everyone to agree that Continental had a brilliant future regardless of the merger? Do you want the United pilots to thank you for saving our airline? It's terribly unclear what your end analysis is here so take a deep breath and calmly explain to me and the thousands of people reading this thread what exactly is it that upsets you so badly.

cadetdrivr

Um, that's not what happened. At all.

Just saying.

Airhoss

I think LAX meant that they were all offered recall. Of course some didn't come back.

Skyflyin

I really just want you to shut your pie hole.

timothyriley

Except the CAL 2005 hires.

reCALcitrant

True. But not on the backs of others. I made out like a bandit when I got hired in 2005 at the front of a huge hiring wave at a solid airline. I've enjoyed a very healthy good paying career so far with no downturns in my bank account. I consider myself fortunate for that.

I think the award was fair. Would you have thought fair was moving me from 737 captain to bottom 10%? People taking pay cuts because of the merger? In the arbs model, nobody did.

Fair is somewhere in the middle and I feel the arbitrators found it pretty well.

Cheers. I look forward to flying with you all.

boxer6

This is for everyone.

Much talk/speculation about the two companies pre merger. These comments below in the next two posts are not from me but guys who were on the INSIDE of the initial 2008 merger process and were privy to MUCH,MUCH more accurate information than anyone here. I would certainly hope people would give these comments more credence than what they conjure up on their own. Alas, I'm sure some people will still refuse to accept anything other than their own thought.

I hope they don't mind me posting it here, but I sincerely believe to move forward in all this, the better the understanding of the historical process we have the better we come to terms as a unified group. Which is, as many have said here, the most important key. Section 6 is coming sooner than we think.



"The real question might be, did any CAL pilots have a clear understanding of the economic realities facing their airline, absent a merger?

I have some insight into this as at the time of the merger I was serving as the UALMEC Vice Chairman and thus privy to SEC Confidential Board of Directors level briefings.

What I understood from a number of sources is that United was doing pretty darn well. We were making a LOT of money and were projected for that to continue. I also understood that while CAL had done well in years past, when the rest of the industry wasn't, CAL had more recently begun losing a LOT of money, this when the rest of the industry had begun turning around. CAL's losses were projected to continue. I'm sure I still have the Power Points somewhere.

Another reality is that when it came to the concept of "dance partners," despite what our personal wishes, dreams, or magical thinking may have been, United was the hot chick (though she may have had chlamydia, a quick shot of anti-biotics would have done the trick). I'm not an expert on such things but all of the analysts, airline observers, and so called experts indicated that United Airlines had the best route network in the world. It was CALs own management who stated that absent a merger with United, Continental would be in deep trouble. I believe the BK word was used. If CAL had not merged with United, United would have merged with USAirways. What would that have left? CAL and AA? Think about what would have happened to you in that situation... the DOJ would have not allowed such a merger and if they did there would have been massive route divestiture. And then there's AA's history of seniority integration to consider. Or maybe CAL would have tried to go it alone. I guess you could have done that.

The bottom line is that the arbitrators did follow ALPA merger policy. The Continental pilots voted to go back into ALPA for this very reason. It is always normal, understandable, and part of the process to have happy, ****ed off, and furious pilots in a merger. Empathy and understanding is helpful in this situation. What I don't understand is how through our anger we just throw out logic and common sense. Yesterday a CAL pilot told me that the arbitrators were "paid off" and "pandering to ALPA National." I thought to myself, 'really?' Why? What would they have to gain? No, they weren't paid off, they did their job as well as they could, trying to balance all that they were commanded to balance. It just didn't work out the way a lot of CAL pilots thought it would. Which is about expectations, isn't it? I mean if from the very beginning the CAL Merger Committee had been realistic, and it had put out a realistic proposal, and if the CALMEC didn't hang everything on idiotic schemes like trying to use PayBanding (which we'll all suffer for now in the long run) to try to bolster it's case (to no avail), perhaps the CAL pilots would have realized that this wasn't a negotiation. Yesterday two CAL pilots told me that it was all screwed up because "you guys (UAL) had your proposal and we (CAL) had ours and the arbitrators should have met in the middle. That seemed to be a misconception on a lot of people's parts. No, that is not how it works. That's a negotiation. This was arbitration with an opportunity for negotiation and making cases. The arbs. had strict guidelines to follow - and that's exactly what they did. Again, there seemed to be a disconnect between reality versus magical thinking thus leading to unrealistic expectations.

United wasn't going bankrupt. United was making a lot of money. Oh, and the 737s ... there are probably two reasons that they were parked in such drastic numbers. One I won't mention because it will only serve to **** off some people. But the primary reason any 737s were parked was to balance the size of the airlines, to make United somewhat closer to CAL in size so that it would give CAL, if not an incentive to merge, at least to have UAL not be such a behemoth. I mean can you imagine how much more your perception of this seniority integration would have been negative if our furloughees weren't furloughees? Now put yourself in their shoes, as so many on the CAL side wanted to staple them to the bottom. They understand that they were sacrificed by management as furloughed pilots off the 737s to appease CAL because CAL was a better merger partner than USAirways, at least for the airlines benefit as airlines in the long run. In fact, USAirways was a better merger for shareholder value. Either way, if there were no merger in the works United would not have parked 100 737s, maybe a few 30 or 40, but not 100.

While i often hear the United side, whether management, ALPA, or line pilots say things like, "Hey, CAL does this or that pretty well..." I never, I mean NEVER hear anything good from the other side about United. What's that all about?

As I'm sure you're aware there is process in grieving the loss of something, perceived or real. Being honest with ourselves about everything related to the loss may help us achieve the fastest path to recovery. As they say, people are entitled to their opinions, but they're not entitled to make up their own facts."

boxer6

From a former MEC member:




"We were waiting for the announcement of the Merger being approved by the CAL BOD in 2008. The meeting was on a Sunday, which tells you how extraordinary it was, and we (the UALMEC) were astonished that Kellner had convinced them "No!"

Immediately, Tilton met with Kellner to find out what the problem was. There were multiple issues, some transitory, some structural, and Tilton set about changing UAL to assuage the CAL BOD. He went to work on the finances, oil prices, AND 737s......which helped in two respects....costs and duplication of lift.

At that time, and as the Arbs saw, UAL was a WB airline with NB feed and some other traffic, while CAL was a NB airline, with some WB flying. CAL had new NBs coming, and Tilton was getting ready for a NB order. The 2+2=7 answer was staring everyone in the face!

Ground the UAL 737s, make UAL smaller and less prone to oil price shocks and closer in size to CAL, use UAL money, credit and collateral for the new NB fleet at CAL and have the two carriers dovetail their future WB orders. The divestiture of UAL 737s makes room for new 737s, opens up routes for the new SJs coming online, and cuts the fuel bill, freeing up even more cash.

One of the main reasons UAL had ridiculously high free cash flow post-bk exit was because we were not using the usual $200-500MM on CapEx. That was going to have to change IN THE FUTURE, but Tilton HAD no UAL future....his job, bankruptcy and merger, was almost done and he was about to cash out. So, UAL's massive free cash flows were "available" to juice the aircraft order book and fix what ailed CAL.....NO CASH!!

As I've said from the outset, when you combine the 2008 UAL-CAL NB fleets, they are larger than SWA and thus unsustainable. Tilton fixed that, then the POS TPAs sealed the deal (and gave away leverage) by allowing the "CAL" fleets to literally open up in the exact same gates, flying the exact same routes, between the exact same places....all at the expense of UAL pilots who were shown the door for another few years.

As Tilton and then Smisek knew, with Heppner and Pierce running the show at UAL and CAL, there were ZERO roadblocks towards doing whatever Smisek wanted, whenever he wanted it. Pierce's agenda was being taken care of, and the "protections" in the TPAs were, for the most part, illusions and distraction from what was really happening just under the surface.

Anytime ALPA says "Not unless you do this...." The Company OWNS YOU! They do what they want and have a million caveats why they can't hold up their end of the bargain. The RLA is designed to give THEM maximum latitude and minimal financial pain, which is why an RLA TRO has such a low hurdle!

Until we ALL start to OBJECTIVELY learn the FOUNDATIONAL lessons of the last decade, we will continue to be the patsies of a marauding, two-faced, and well-organized back room staff of lawyers and pilot haters within UAL.

However, as a group, we won't even accept facts as facts, because they don't meet our parochial needs.

As I've said for the last few years, good luck to us all! If we don't get our own house in order, get organized around a few simple facts and common goals, we will continue to be played like a fiddle. However, even the notion of "common goals" has been completely bastardized by cheap political stunts, so we have our work cut out.

We need to return to our roots and concentrate on the basics. Being a union member shouldn't be that hard for supposedly intelligent adults, but we make it hard by complicating it!

What is it WE want? What is it that WE can reasonably achieve? What is it WE are willing to fight for?

Know those answers and you can shape a program and policy to meet those objectives! However, politicize every decision, make even the minutae subject to political chicanery, and you will have exactly what we have right now.

"The fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings"

We need to be better. We need to be smarter. We need to produce a set of goals and ideals 12,000 pilots can get behind.

THAT MANIFESTO NEEDS TO BE THE FIRST ORDER OF BUSINESS FOR THE NEW MEC AND OFFICER CORPS.

Will it? Or will we get some warmed over pablum about working together that is met by the deaf ears of a disaffected and disinterested pilot group?"