AWA MEC Chairman's Special Update

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AWA MEC Chairman's Special Update - June 26, 2007

Fellow AWA Pilots:

Earlier today, ALPA’s Executive Council met in closed session to resume their previous discussion of the East MEC’s request to overturn the Nicolau Award. While the Executive Council was in session, the AAA MEC filed a lawsuit against the AWA MEC (and me personally) in D.C. Superior Court seeking to vacate the Nicolau Award.

While it had been our hope that the Executive Council would rule today that the Nicolau Award is indeed “final and binding,†they have disappointingly chosen to further delay their decision until the Executive Council meeting scheduled for July 17, 2007. At the end of today’s meeting, the Executive Council passed two resolutions (attached below for your review). The first resolution delayed the decision as previously mentioned and the second directs ALPA President Captain John Prater to call a joint meeting of the two MECs in addition to establishing a special committee composed of First Vice President Captain Paul Rice and other Executive Board/Council members to work with both MECs and the JNC to find what the Executive Council is describing as “consensual approaches that promote mutual career protection and mutual success.â€

From the day the Nicolau Award was issued, your MEC has maintained a careful approach with regard to ensuring that ALPA Merger Policy is properly followed. As we stated before, and you will notice a theme in these resolutions (and in the Prater video message), we have said there is little or no risk that the Executive Council will overturn the Nicolau Award. We continue to believe that this is the case after consulting today with EVP Captain Russ Webber and our merger counsel Jeff Freund. While we are extremely frustrated that the Executive Council has chosen to continue to delay presentation of the Nicolau Award to management, we would encourage our pilots to focus on the fact that the merits of the Award do not appear to be in question.

While the Executive Council wants to do what is best for all pilots, both East and West, it is clear to us that the overriding concern factored into this decision was, and continues to be, the perceived threat of decertification by a disgruntled faction of US Airways pilots. While all of us know that decertification will do little to overturn the Nicolau Award, it is a threat that ALPA President Captain John Prater and the Executive Council are taking very seriously, as they believe it will cause much turmoil and leave the combined group embroiled in years of zero contract improvements and political upheaval.

Our belief following the original delay of the Executive Council decision is that ALPA should have spent the past month educating the US Airways pilots about the likely realities of decertification not having an effect on the Nicolau Award in a timely manner. Instead, the past month was spent encouraging the America West MEC to discuss “career progression†schemes to alleviate pressure from the AAA pilots, and additionally permitting the US Airways MEC to propagate more false promises and rhetoric to their pilot group thus continuing to damage the unity we had carefully built in our strategic Coast-to-Coast campaign. I have pointed out that the reason our pilots were not as visibly upset about the Award is because we carefully educated AWA pilots about ALPA Merger Policy, and published all the hearing transcripts to our pilots so they could follow along with the actual arbitration hearings and know what was happening in the hearing on the legal record.

No doubt this next delay will only cause continued unnecessary friction between the East and West pilot groups despite the best wishes of the Executive Council. Also, this delay only serves to continue to delay the merger integration and the JNC process even further at the economic expense of all East and West pilots. Unfortunately this expense to the America West pilots is being incurred in addition to the expense we’ve already paid by delaying our own right to contract negotiations.

I want you to know that the AWA MEC is continuing to evaluate all our options to ensure we respond appropriately to protect the interests of AWA pilots in the long term. Currently, the AWA MEC is:

Meeting with ALPA and our outside merger counsel Jeff Freund to review the merits of the lawsuit;
Ensuring that this lawsuit and any related litigation is taken up by ALPA Legal in a timely manner for review and rapid discharge in the appropriate venue;
Encouraging ALPA to vigorously defend the Nicolau Award as is their responsibility under ALPA Merger Policy Section 45;
Continuing to ensure that the Executive Council discharges their duty to present the “final and binding†Award to US Airways management in timely manner; and
Continuing JNC talks to ensure we are making progress toward an acceptable joint contract that benefits all pilots.
I want you all to know that I personally expressed my frustration and disappointment with Captain Prater this afternoon on the decision to delay presentation of this Award. The AWA MEC will continue to pressure ALPA to follow the ALPA Policy Manual and present this Award to CEO Doug Parker in a timely manner.

Fraternally and in solidarity,

Captain John McIlvenna
AWA MEC Chairman