ALPA's Negotiating Committee and the Company reached a RJ scope tentative agreement late last night and now the ALPA Policy Manual provides up to 7 days for the MEC to review the detailed document.
One MEC member recently said, "As an overview, the company is basically asking for scope relief to allow GECAS to sell the CRJ's slated for PSA and the EMB's slated for MDA to an USAirways Express Participating Affiliate (Mesa, for example) if GECAS decides not to sell them to USAirways Inc.
We can't make GECAS lend us the money to buy these airplanes no matter what we do with scope, as their decision appears to be credit worthiness driven and that, at the moment, is not our strong suit. So if they decide not to lend us the money for some or all of these SJ deliveries, then the company wants to be able to capture the revenue stream by those SJ's being sold to our Affiliates. Why is that so important? Because that revenue stream makes up a significant portion of the revenue that we told the ATSB we would deliver under our Plan of Reorganization (POR), and if it goes away we are going to have even bigger problems meeting our ATSB loan covenants," he said.
I suspect, although I do not know yet, the deal could include:
1. Increase Large (70-seat) SJs to be flown at PSA by 35, from 25 to a total of 60. Per the new ATSB agreement permit the sale of PSA without ATSB approval, with 75% of the proceeds used to pay down debt and 25% kept for general corproate pruposes. Separately, we could see the Allegheny/Piedmont turboprop operation "spun off" as well.
2. Change J4J provisions for Large SJs at PSA from 100% to 50%, maintain this if PSA is sold off, and becomes an affiliated carrier as opposed to a Wholly-Owned.
3. Allow CRJ aircraft on order at PSA to be flown at a participating affiliate at a J4J ratio of 50%.
4. Extend the deadline from 12/31/04 to 12/31/06 to place the large SJs at participating affiliates.
5. The Company can place EMB 170/175s at a Participating Affiliate Carrier with a 50% J4J ratio. The one exception could be if MDA is "spun off" as a separate airline, they would keep the 100% J4J.
The five items the Company previously offered ALPA in return for the scope relief were:
1. Tag Along Rights -- The Company’s position is that it may be very difficult to properly administer such a program, since all the currently distributed stock is in individual pilot’s hands as opposed to being held by a single entity such as a trust. The Company will meet with RSA and ALPA representatives on Friday, March 5 to expeditiously resolve all outstanding Tag Along issues. Again, Tag Along Rights were negotiated during Restructuring allowing all stock issued to ALPA to be eligible for the same premium that RSA stock may be offered.
2. Jump Seat -- The Company will participate in the industry off line jump seat plan. Once this process is approved, the company shall apply to TSA to participate after it determines the cost of participation in the program. The time frame for approval and cost of this program have not yet been determined.
3. Security Checkpoint Alternate Access -- The company agrees to implement a procedure arranging for alternate access to secure areas at pilot domicile airports with the company paying no more than $70 toward each pilot’s cost. The target for implementation is six months.
4. Commuter Policy -- The parties will negotiate and implement a commuter policy by no later than July 1,2004. The current Southwest Commuter Policy states that as long as you have one flight and one backup that arrive before check-in time, there is no penalty if either one does not operate or runs late. We would hope to implement something similar here.
5. Trip Pairing Construction -- Two members of the Scheduling Committee will work with the Company to review pairing Construction parameters with the objective of seeking mutually beneficial improvements to the quality and efficiency of pairings, as long as the result is no additional cost to the Company.
In my opinion, the deal will be something like the information above, will likely be endorsed by the MEC next week, and then be sent out for membership ratification with the voting results done in 10 days or about two weeks from now. In fact, it wold not surprise me if we have the electronic vote results announced by Friday, March 26.
This will provide about 90 days or until the end of June to have new labor accords in place.
Finally, ALPA spokesman Jack Stephan told the Charlotte Observer in an interview yesterday that "We're anxious to work with the airline and the rest of labor on the plan to return the airline to profitability."
Regards,
USA320Pilot
