2014 Pilot Discussion

[traderjake]

 

[EastUS1]

 
If your assertions and "arguments" are the best you can actually manage, and represent the finest possible achievements your "mind" can offer...well...you might want to take a break from your "Bender". You're enough of a cartoon character as is..."LT Hardy". 😉
 
So...no answer to: American was in BK. Should the "spartans"/the east not now harvest all their wealth and positions?...At least certainly their seniority? If no; why not?...Or does your "logic" only apply to the US/AWA "merger"?
 
P.S. "Do you pick your stocks the same way and with similar "wisdom"?..Small wonder that you've made no great success with such then." That apparently hit a nerve. No worries. We all do the best we can with our gifts/limitations in life.

 

[Pi brat]

Not true.
 
None of the other airlines were in Chapter 11 facing certain downsizing and possible Chapter 7 without their mergers.

Not following you there. I'm talking about Bloch's arbitration for AWA/US dispatchers vs. Nicolau's for pilots. Did you ever read it?

 

[Claxon]

The Nicolau Award is a moot point. Never implemented, never will be. An ALPA arbitration.
No relevance now, almost 8 yrs later. It cannot be referenced any more than in the context of a bill that never made it through Congress.

 

[traderjake]

Not following you there. I'm talking about Bloch's arbitration for AWA/US dispatchers vs. Nicolau's for pilots. Did you ever read it?

 
Obviously not. 
 
How is a dispatchers arbitration relevant to pilots?

 

[Phoenix]

 
Obviously not. 
 
How is a dispatchers arbitration relevant to pilots?

 
 
Obviously you didn't mean it when you told us an arbitrator's opinion about chapter 11/7 matters.  😀

 

[EastUS1]

 
Obviously not. 
 
How is a dispatchers arbitration relevant to pilots?

 
Sigh! Are you just trying to be a constant source of laughter here, or "simply" and truly that incredibly clueless? You would first have us all imagine an arbitrator's whims to be both perfect creations and apparently, universally sacred, (even to the very questioning of such to be treason against your bizarre fantasies of "Honor", "LT Hardy"). Sigh! OK then, so arbitrators are infallible, and even if one completely differs with your perverted notions regarding the worth anyone's worked-years carry, within even the very same corporate entity as the pilot-or-other employees...Nevermind. Let's keep it sufficiently simple for you. How then is gravity relevant to all living on earth?...Or is that too, only to be evaluated on a case-by-case and purely "relative" basis? Certainly gravity, at least as much a universally righteous force as arbitrators could ever imagine being, must needs treat a pilot much differently than all other mere mortals when walking about?...Or does the natural and "real" world not truly work that way?
 
traderjake: "Except for placing the W/B F/Os ahead of the N/B Captains, I predicted the exact Nicolau Award." "Except for"? Except for that Mrs. Lincoln; did you enjoy the play? Your own admission notes that you don't/can't really have even the slightest clue what any arbitrator will ever do, and yet you feel some strangely perverse need to flourish pom poms, don knee pads, drop down in "supplication" and "worship" them? Are you truly THAT insane?...Or are you "simply" stricken with an IQ no sea sponge would ever envy?

 

[spike99]

If you do not understand the relevance, you truly are an idiot, or worse. 

 

[EastUS1]

If you do not understand the relevance, you truly are an idiot, or worse. 

 
Well said, and with far less wasted words than my reply.

 

[EastUS1]

Pi brat, on 29 Aug 2014 - 8:41 PM, said: Not following you there. I'm talking about Bloch's arbitration for AWA/US dispatchers vs. Nicolau's for pilots. Did you ever read it?

Obviously not.

 
In all fairness; I suppose you should have been given a gentle pass after: "Did you ever read it?" could only be fielded by you with "Obviously not."
 
Katie bar the doors! Let not so much as a single ray of light come in! It just hurts my eyes anyway, and my "mind" is made up! 😉

 

[traderjake]

If you do not understand the relevance, you truly are an idiot, or worse. 

 
Whatever you say, dumb*ss.

 

[nycbusdriver]

 
 
Look what crawled out from the shadows.
 
NYC Lawmakers Want More Transparency from MTA on Bedbugs
 
http://www.wfuv.org/news/news-politics/140828/nyc-lawmakers-want-more-transparency-mta-bedbugs
 
Few things are more disgusting than a Piedmont pilot who flips his position with every merger. 
 
I don't think the next arbitration panel is going to disregard Nicolau's work.

 
 
Nothing like changing the subject to distract.  Like there aren't bedbugs (or worse) in whatever hole you call home.

 

[nycbusdriver]

 
Not true.
 
None of the other airlines were in Chapter 11 facing certain downsizing and possible Chapter 7 without their mergers.  

 
Read Bloch's award to the US/AW dispatchers you idiot.

 

[Pi brat]

Obviously not. 
 
How is a dispatchers arbitration relevant to pilots?

His opinion on the condition of the airlines and the value they brought to the merger is very relevant.

It's interesting that with all the times it's been offered that you haven't read it. I guess it doesn't line up with your "We're not worthy! " mantra, so you ignore it.

 

[traderjake]

His opinion on the condition of the airlines and the value they brought to the merger is very relevant.

It's interesting that with all the times it's been offered that you haven't read it. I guess it doesn't line up with your "We're not worthy! " mantra, so you ignore it.

 
.
The Financial Picture
From the evidence, it is clear enough that the merger with AWA was a meaningful factor in U.S. Airway’s emergence from bankruptcy. Together, the two companies were able to attract investments that, operating alone, they might not have secured. However, West’s claim that U.S. Airways emerged from bankruptcy "only because it [was] acquired by a stronger enterprise"
10 is reflected neither in the KPMG audit report (cited by West)11 nor in any other portion of the evidence. Instead, each carrier had something to contribute. Airways, for example, was much larger. It served almost twice as many destinations as AWA and carried twice the number of passengers.12 Airways has substantially more cash on hand, following the merger agreement. AWA, for its part, brought Transport Workers Union Of America, Local 545 and 542 5 of 11
13
See the various references to the accounting and reporting techniques involved with this assumption, in the "Notes to the Financial Statements", Ex. E, pp. 212 et seq.
14
See transcript, p. 79.
15
See n. 7(a) to the Financial Statement, West Ex. E p. 239, for example.
16
See Local 545 ex. 1, p. 24, 43.
17
West Ex. E, at 208.
relative success as a low cost carrier operation with a meaningful presence in the Western United States.
Airways’ "fresh start"
13 included a series of steps designed to strengthen Airways’ financial situation. Among other things, it entered into concessionary bargaining with its unions, ultimately securing some $1 billion dollars per year in cost reductions. 14 Termination of certain existing defined benefit and other post-retirement benefit plans generated substantial savings.15 A 35 percent decrease in labor cost16 taken together with other cost saving measures, resulted in a positive net operating income for the second and third quarters of 2005, prior to approval of the merger agreement in September of 2005. 17 AWA, for its part, while not in bankruptcy, was attempting to confront what it regarded as a troubled and potentially perilous future, absent the merger, in the face of rising fuel costs and depressed unit revenues as a result of over capacity, among other things. It, too, needed cash.
West characterizes the merger decision on AWA’s part as a one-way economic bailout. But there is no support for this in the record; surely, the respective companies did not endorse that view. AWA concluded, according to the statements of its CEO, that "…when we looked out at our future, what we saw Transport Workers Union Of America, Local 545 and 542 6 of 11
18
about Us, November 25,2005. Local 545 ex. 5, p. 5. The quote is derived from CEO Doug Parker’s published answer to a question of why it was necessary for AWA to integrate when "it wasn’t AWA that needed the merger in order to survive?" At the hearing, Arbitrator Harris properly overruled AWA’s hearsay objection. The about US publication is not, as East counsel suggests, a business record. However, the statement may be accepted not for the purpose of proving the truth of the matter asserted - - that AWA was facing imminent bankruptcy -- but rather, that AWA Executives perceived a rocky future as justification for pursuing the merger.
19
West Ex. 3, p. 2.
20
Id., p. 3.
wasn’t good…. Assuming we couldn’t go out and restructure or raise cash, it is possible that AWA would have been facing its own Chapter 11 at some point. Employees may like to think we "saved" US but the fact is we saved each other…
18
The June 10, 2005 issue of "Plane Deal", an AWA publication, touted some of the benefits of joining fleet forces:
When merged, the combined airline will become the nation’s 5
th larges airline, as measured by domestic available seat miles (ASMs). The combined airline is expected to operated a mainline fleet of 361 planes (supported by 239 regional jets and 57 turbo props for feed into the mainline system), down from a total of 419 mainline aircraft operated by both airlines at the beginning of 2005….19
In the context of a "Town Hall" Q&A , the company noted
the prospect of a combined airline was more enticing to investors:
The money is being raised for the combined airline, because investors see the value in the merged entity. Frankly, airlines in their current state don’t look appealing to investors, who are savvy to know industry change needs to take place. The proposed merger represents the kind of change that investors believe will be successful. So, unfortunately, we wouldn’t garner this kind of interest if we were seeking funding for America West "as is."
20
Much of West’s claimed superiority over East, in terms of what it brought to the merger, is speculative. There is, for example, scant support for West’s claim that, post-merger, "the focus of lender anxiety is clearly on the side of U.S. Transport Workers Union Of America, Local 545 and 542 7 of 11
21
West post hearing brief, p. 6.
22
Id., p. 12-13.
23
Tr., p. 231.
24
East Ex. 11.
Airways"
21 or that, following the merger, with the AWA CEO assuming the helm in Phoenix, "the predator king gets to have the top job, to grant fiefs to his chieftains, and to fly the flag over his castle!"22 Rather, what appears from the evidence is that, post-merger, the companies adopted a mixed management team and that, significantly, they adopted the US Airways collective bargaining agreement as applicable to the combined TWU force. Thus, setting aside the respective claims of who came with what, the hard evidence as to what was achieved shows significant parity as between carriers, each of which contributed complementary elements to a combined operation.
Most meaningful are the gains realized by West Dispatchers when operating under the US Airways labor agreement. It is, by most measures, the more generous document of the two. According to the record, AWA Dispatchers, prior to the merger, were the lowest paid among major carriers and worked the greatest number of annual hours.
23 Following implementation of a transition agreement, work hours for AWA Dispatchers will be cut by 133 hours per year. Work days will be reduced from 10 to 8 hours.24 The East contract includes a profit sharing plan in addition to the 401(K) profit sharing; the West agreement has none. Wage rates under the U.S. Airways cba are more generous; AWA Dispatchers will reach top of scale in eleven years instead of fifteen and will enjoy