Who's opinion? Yours?
Change may come to other bases as well
THE NICOLAU AWARD
Many of you rightfully are bit fuzzy as to the status of the Nicolau Award after the latest iteration of court battles and arbitrations, and have asked us to explain how the Nicolau Award might become part of the new American Airlines seniority list.
During the SLI process ahead of us, each of the three merger committees (AA, East, and West) will likely present different ideas of how the final American Airlines seniority list should be integrated. Ultimately, it will be up to a panel of three highly-seasoned arbitrators to determine which portion(s) (if any) of each proposal meet the fair and equitable standard as they attempt to craft their award. An important part of this process will be determining the relative ordering of East and West pilots into that final American Airlines seniority list, and of course, it is for that reason APA established (and American supported) separate East and West committees for this process. Both the East and West committees will present their views as to the relative ordering of the East and West pilots, and it will be up to the arbitration panel to decide how that should be done.
Our position is simple. The pre-merger stand-alone career expectations of America West and US Airways pilots were set and measured in May 2005 when the merger of those two airlines was announced. From that point on, we began working for a new airline (LCC) with new career expectations, and agreed to equitably divide the benefits of our new airline according to a well-recognized, fair and equitable seniority integration process. Both pilot groups participated in the process in good faith and without a single objection to any part of the process itself. The process ended with a result, and that result remains the ONLY combined East/West seniority list ever reached by mutual East/West agreement, and it is the ONLY combined East/West seniority list ever accepted by US Airways. That seniority list, the Nicolau Award, can therefore be the ONLY fair and equitable basis for integrating US Airways pilots with American Airlines pilots. The fact that it was never implemented is of no moment; it reflected the balancing of pre-merger stand-alone career expectations of the two pilot groups then and it still does today.