First Officer Lucchese:
Since you addressed your recent domicile update to the East pilots instead of the pilots you actually represent in your domicile I feel compelled to reply. I would like the opportunity to point out a few facts that you left out of your discussion and to clarify some misstatements that you have purported to be facts. I will apologize for the length of my reply now as you raised several complex issues that need to be addressed.
Let’s start with a clear misunderstanding of the parties positions in the arbitration that led to the Nicolau award. You state, “That’s one of the reasons that DOH was erased right from the beginning as a seniority integration method during arbitration.” To be clear, the position of the AAA pilots during the arbitration hearing was not DOH, it was a list based on length of service, with significant conditions and restrictions. This makes a significant difference given the large disparity between many junior AAA F/O’s DOH and length of service. You appear to be unaware of or to gloss over that significant fact.
Next you state, “I also would like to mention that DAL/NWA seniority integration is quite similar to our arbitration.” While it is true that both arbitrators used a relative position slotting methodology as a basis for the merged list, that is where the similarities end. There are virtually not effective conditions and restrictions in the Nicolau award while the DAL/NWA award places significant conditions and restrictions on the merged list for a period of 5 years. The Nicolau award makes not conditions and restrictions to account for differences in equipment pay, bases, or length of service in the event of furlough. These are very significant issues dealt with in the conditions and restrictions of the DAL/NWA award.
You asset that the minor changes in relative position between merged and unmerged lists are insignificant. Let’s use some numbers to test that theory. Here are the assumptions: Pilot “A” is in the 90th percentile of a 2000 pilot list at seniority #1800, pilot “B” is in the 90th percentile of a 3000 pilot list making him seniority #2700. Pilot “A” moves up an insignificant 2 percentile of the merged list and Pilot “B” moves down 2 percentile, placing them at 88% and 92% on the merged list with seniority numbers of 4400 and 4600 respectively. In the event of a furlough at their separate airlines, 200 furloughs would have gotten to “A” and 300 would have gotten to “B”. Now at the merged carrier, furlough those same 500 pilots and “A” keeps working while “B” is furloughed even though “B’s” list brought 60% of the jobs to the merged list which should have offered him more protection.
In the discussion about your chart you state, “very junior AAA pilots lose 6% seniority. For pilots in the middle of both lists, the gain/loss is almost irrelevant. The difference in seniority for the junior AAA pilots is certainly due to the fact that AAA had 1800 pilots on furlough and AWA didn’t have any.” Maybe I misread your chart, I see AAA pilot #2500, the most junior that you list, losing 9 percentage points in your example. You go on to state that this pilot is “very junior”; we must have a different definition of, “very junior.” My seniority number is close enough to 2500 to not require interpolation. My DOH is 2/1/88, my current LOS is 21.5 years, my current bid position is in the 33rd percentile of F/Os in the base I bid. Which one of those numbers make me “very junior” and makes it acceptable for me to lose over 400 positions from where I would be if I maintained my relative position?
Since you chose to use a snapshot of how the relative positions don’t shift appreciably, in your opinion, if we simply implement the award now, I would like to take another snapshot of the award to demonstrate the fatal flaw of your thesis in the eyes of most East First Officers. Since I hate to use others as an example let’s stick to only your numbers and mine for the example. With a hire date of 10/27/03 you sit at #4136 or the 85th percentile of the combined list. With a seniority date of 2/1/88 I sit at #4460, the 92nd percentile and just to be clear, I have zero time on furlough and multiple years as a Captain at this airline. The snapshot I would take to demonstrate to you what you may not understand, is one taken on 6/1/2027. On that date, I would be #48 of the AAA only list, or in the 1st percentile. On the merged list I sit at #754, just outside the 15th percentile. This is hardly an inconsequential change give the fact that it completely changes what job and therefore what earning potential will be available to me. On that same date you will be in the 13th percentile. Interesting to note is that on that date only 5 of the top 100 and 15 of the first 400 pilots on the combined list will be from the former AAA list. Nicolau chose to place 517 AAA pilots at the top of the list, on 6/1/2027 only 27 of the first 517 on the combined list will be from the AAA list. That means that on 6/1/2027 only 27 former AAA pilots will be able to hold the premium jobs brought to the merger by the AAA pilots.
You say, “I heard the “our attrition argument” many times, but if you really want to use statistics, probabilities and history, you will find that US Airways' reduction in size (furlough) was much greater than attrition due to retirement.” The above paragraph demonstrates that although you may have heard the argument many times you clearly either don’t understand the issue or want to conveniently ignore it. The “attrition argument,” as you put it has nothing to do with the past and everything to do with the future. The AAA pilots brought 2/3 of the jobs to the merger, 75% of the future attrition and 100% of the premium paying jobs, yet in the middle of 2027 there are only 5 of the top 100 pilots on the merged list from the former AAA list. That is, “our attrition argument” at its very core.
All the agreements you sight were negotiated and or ratified by the AAA pilots for one reason; so that our company would survive. We did it so we could live to fight another day, so that in the future we could reap the rewards of our sacrifice. None of us did it so that we could take the job of an AWA pilot. Now most of us have made that sacrifice in vain. Mr. Nicolau transferred the vast majority of the benefits of those sacrifices to the AWA pilots. Unlike many of my peers, I have made peace with that fact. I clearly understood the risk our side took in pressing our position. The AWA pilots won, but don’t think for one minute that we will ever work in a “friendly and rewarding environment.” The failure of both sides to compromise when they had the opportunity has forever poisoned that well. The acrimony created by our mutual intransigence will be taken advantage of by management in every contract negotiation and will be felt in every cockpit as long as there is one single former AAA pilot working at this company.
