I didn't say the Nicolau Award was fair, I said it was the product of an agreed upon process. US Air was days from completely grinding to a stop. Fair would be to place Randy McNerlin at #2. Leonidas and our legal team have been truthful and professional since day one.
If you would take the time to stop drinking the Cleary-ade, you may eventually get it. Time & the law are on our side. We have been damaged by USAPA's actions, but I believe we will ultimately prevail. It's gonna take a big parachute to lessen the effect of the fall you may be in for......
Have a wonderful day.
More "damage" Who sold you that bill of goods to your precious souls that you are constantly being "Damaged?" Unbelievable. The constant mixing of ripeness with damage has absolutely addled your judgement. Look at east pilots now, after the passage of time. Right back and climbing. The separate entities have highlighted just how screwed up Nicolau was with the west. Keep the west separate, and it immediately gets right back into profit and cash flow issues. You took a snapshot in time, after the east was damaged to make the merger happen. Downsized, and pension taken, just as Seabury Group stated it had to be a year prior in their first attempt to do it. It took another drag through BK to do the damage to make the crap "merge" a reality. Try your argument, and we can easily turn it right back at you. One question- you constantly crow about LOA 93, Enjoy LOA 93 etc. What do you think that is? Is that not damage to the east that you maintained? I forgot, damage is always your little prize that Leonidas bestowed and anointed the chosen west with, for their convenience and use. You should have listened to ALPA at the end. McIlvenna did you a huge disservice and gave his throne to Leonidas. It is killing him now. Below is the discussion of how AWA started the pension destruction of all airlines. Enjoy. You and your great company helped start the cascade that stripped all airline employees of their pensions. What an accomplishment! Are you sure all the pilots you encounter and support you actually exist, or are they just a way to make you fell better?
US Airways, America West needed 15 months and a second bankruptcy to conclude their merger
US Airways was talking merger with America West well in advance of its second bankruptcy filing, but the pay, pension and retiree-benefit cutbacks of its current stint in Chapter 11 are what made the deal feasible, according to a regulatory filing by America West.
The filing, to the Securities and Exchange Commission, makes clear that even though the deal was concluded within a month after initial press reports that the two airlines were in negotiations, its origins go back as far as February 2004. The filing also revises downward, to 39% from 45%, the share of the merged company's equity that will go to current America West shareholders, who are being asked to approve the merger.
In a registration statement describing merger terms to these shareholders, America West gives this account of how the deal came about:
THE FIRST DISCUSSIONS resulted from the troubles US Airways faced after emerging from its first bankruptcy, on Mar. 31, 2003. The carrier reduced its highest-in-the-industry costs considerably during an eight-month reorganization but overestimated its post-bankruptcy revenues and was surprised, then as now, by fuel price increases. Casting about for ways to avoid another Chapter 11 filing, US Airways looked at an America West merger as one alternative.
For its part, America West's management "believed that consolidation in the industry was inevitable, and was interested in the potential benefits of combining the airlines' complementary eastwest route networks." But the talks ended in July 2004 when both carriers concluded that it wouldn't work due to "a number of issues, including … labor, pension and benefit costs." Two months later, US Airways went back into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
In December 2004, assuming it would reduce its labor costs further, US Airways set out to investigate deals with other companies. US Airways/America West talks were reopened in January, this time figuring that their labor costs would turn out to be "similar," and that bankruptcy would increase the ability to combine networks more efficiently and cost effectively than before. US Airways' prospective post-reorganization liquidity also was a plus.
Enter the committees and the consultants. The board of America West's parent, America West Holdings, was briefed on the renewed talks on Jan. 20 as part of a strategy presentation. The strategy and finance committee of US Airways Holdings' board was advised late in February. Legal, financial and labor analyses followed in March, with the key finding that US Airways' labor costs no longer made a merger impractical.