First off, the two aren't the same thing.
Southwest's recent codesharing agreements with WestJet (Canada) and Volaris (Mexico) aren't what the AA/BA/IB antitrust immunity application is all about. Rather than flying any of its own airplanes to Canada or Mexico, WN now proposes to codeshare with these fly-by-night foreign airlines (I'd never even heard of Volaris until the other day). WN passengers will connect to these foreign airlines at WN gateways (perhaps MDW, HOU, DAL, PHX, etc).
I can understand why pilots are wary of codesharing. Organic growth would eventually mean more pilot jobs, while codesharing growth probably means more pilot jobs for pilots of the foreign partner. On the other hand, the career expectation of a WN pilot has never included flying to Canada or Mexico (or across any ocean) and even if their pilots were to sink these codeshare agreements (and the other anticipated world-wide codeshares on the horizon), the odds that WN would fly any of these routes with WN metal and WN crews is just about ZERO.
At AA, the APA has always been very leary of codeshares, especially since AA is able to fly to most of the destinations on its own. Particularly galling to the pilots are the domestic codeshares, like with Midway, Reno, Alaska, etc. I can appreciate why they would rather see AA fly its own metal with its own crews to domestic destinations. Nevertheless, APA's scope clause permits some limited domestic codesharing.
APA has permitted some international codeshares, notably to Australia, China, Japan and other non-open skies destinations (Australia only recently became open-skies). And codesharing beyond AA's partners' hubs like on nearly every BA flight from London to European and mid-east cities or on JAL from NRT to several SE Asian cities like SIN, BKK, etc. make perfect sense, given that AA can't connect passengers at those hubs and fly its own metal to those beyond cities. And those destinations tend to be too long and too thin to realistically ever support an AA nonstop from the USA.
But the Antitrust immunity application is not about codeshares. It's a proposal to allow AA, BA, IB (and the other smaller misc. airlines) to agree on prices and schedules - activities that would land the execs in prison were it not for the ATI (Antitrust Immunity) granted by the USA and the EU. They want to be able to pool the revenues and expenses of operating their transatlantic flights, sharing the profits. By allowing these competitors to conspire on prices and schedules, say the participants, they can better compete AGAINST the other alliances, instead of competing with their Oneworld Alliance partners.
I'm not a pilot and I'm not management, and thus far, the ATI doesn't resemble the codesharing that pilots legitimately fear. We recently heard in this forum from an APA member who merely repeated the APA's position paper on the ATI without ever really explaining how the ATI might cost the APA any jobs.
Vague fears about AA not flying and relying on the partners were repeated, nonsensical as they were. The other alliances have this advantage over AA and BA and, in the case of NW/KLM, have had it for 15 years. NW is still flying all over the globe, even on its own metal to AMS. Now, DL and AF, which also share ATI, have joined NW and KL. UA and LH have immunity over the Atlantic. NW, DL and UA still fly lots of widebodies over the Atlantic.
Yet the APA wants people to think that its jobs are at risk if AA and BA are granted immunity. How dumb does the APA think we are? How dumb does the APA think Congress is? The APA is flailing its arms at anything it can reach primarily because AA is unlikely to increase their book rates by 50% as the APA has demanded. Additionally, the APA is infected with the typical case of paycheck envy since it failed to negotiate any meaningful upside comparable to the PSPs. Further, the APA has proposed in its negotiating positions that all existing AA codeshares be discontinued, even with Eagle. That's probably a non-starter.
