Hey Guys and Gals,
This might put things in perspective. This is an excerpt from the July 9th 2007 seniority list for UAL. It shows 7995 pilots on the list, with the most junior being hired on August 6, 2001.
The small list at the bottom of this post is from people hired at UAL around July 18, 1988. What's special about July 18th 1988? Well, that's when Joe Monda was hired at USAirways. Remember Joe Monda? He was the MOST JUNIOR ACTIVE PILOT at USAirways at the time the merger was announced.
He was the equivalent to AWA's Dave O'Dell.
If USAirways were to have merged with United in May 2000, (and it almost happened!) the east pilots would have UNDOUBTEDLY demanded date of hire (and nothing else!) in the inevitable arbitration, which also would have been conducted under ALPA meger policy.
Under that scenario, Joe Monda would have been placed above RH Carreras, a UAL pilot hired on July 25, 1988, with a longevity date of 09-05-88. I underlined his name in the excerpt below. (his UAL seniority number is 1473, his birth date is 4-29-60, just to help decipher all the numbers) I am assuming Carreras is male, for simplicity's sake.
Here's what's interesting about RH Carreras, according to this list:
Messr. Carreras has 6522 pilots below him.
That's right, folks, 6,522 pilots, or 82% of the list below him. This means that Messr. Monda would gleefully leap-frog over 6522 pilots and take his rightful place in the top 18% of their proposed Date-of-Hire UAL/AAA seniority list.
From dead-last to senior Captain, presto-chango!!!
Maybe an arbitrator AND two pilot neutrals would go along with that, but certainly not the arbitrator AAA lobbied so strongly to hear their case, Messr. George Nicolau. A lot of people think NO arbitrator would go along with that, a lot of UAL pilots included!!! (but I'm just guessing here)
And yes, had USAirways merged with United in 2000, Joe Monda, under a likely relative seniority arbitration (like ours) would have been placed alongside UAL pilots hired many, many, many years after he was. Again, a HUGE disparity in date of hire, but again, the only fair way of doing things with a group as senior as AAA.
The point is, ANY airline out there today that were to merge with USAirways would face the prospect of having Joe Monda placed above 70-100% of their pilot group.
And this would be just fine with the east pilots.
What would not be fine with them would be a fair, relative seniority list issued under binding arbitration. However, in a UAL/AAA merger (or with any other larger carrier) they would not have the brute numbers to pull the stunt they did after Nicolau was awarded.
Am I way off base here? Anybody know of a pilot at UAL (or American, or Delta for that matter!) with 6,500 pilots or so below him who would want a junior F/O from AAA right next to him on a combined list?
PAGE 51
. PDF PILOT ELIGIBILITY SENIORITY LIST
. AS OF 07/09/07
. SEN# NAME FILE # BIRTH DATE CO. HIRE DATE PLT. SEN DATE PLT. LONG DATE
. 01471 FETENE,A 079702-0 06/30/53 07/11/88 07/11/88 09/01/88
. 01472 OBERLE,RG 079729-6 02/18/56 07/11/88 07/11/88 08/20/88
. 01473 CARRERAS,RH 079763-5 04/29/60 07/25/88 07/25/88 09/05/88
. 01474 ZEGLEN,NA 079822-1 06/16/59 07/25/88 07/25/88 09/09/88