Originally Posted by
RedHeadFlyer
With the merger announcement now looking imminent, I'm curious about thoughts on the usually contentious issue of merging seniority lists. Not on specific progress or proposals, just in general.
I have a relative who worked for Hughes which became Republic which merged into Northwest. As I heard it, his seniority list was basically stapled, which lead to howls of complaints of unfairness. But he was young enough that he sucked it up and eventually got to captain on 747s before recently retiring.
But no matter how it's done, it seems there is no way to "fairly" merge the list. Regardless, two lists of 1-500 becoming one list of 1-1000 involves the average of number of the list doubling. For the casual observer date of hire initially sounds fair, but upon further inspection you can get situations where fleet differences lead to crew being seriously below others for "lesser planes", significant captain/FO inversions, the "hiring bursts" of airline A happened out of sync from the "hiring bursts" of airline B making all/most of airline B feeling they were short shrifted, or any number of other things where when you look at the combined list you say "that's doesn't look right". Take into consideration the outcomes like expected pay or imminent retirements versus before also give you an additional bunch of "that doesn't look right". Weighted date or list combining on a strict ratio also usually give these same effects. I'd think United has many factors like these to make any simple process bad.
IMHO, coming down to a manual construction is the most fair taking into account all the factors, but ouch, that's a hard thing to do and certainly prone to a lot more criticism than simpler "fairer" methods. Do we just send all seniority merges straight to binding arbitration? Seems that's what happens with the ALPA merger policy after going through the steps of "settle between yourselves" and "try again with a mediator" first.
How should a good process work, or is the ALPA's as good as it gets?
The ALPA merger policy essentially attempts to not give any one pilot group a windfall over another pilot group. So, the two groups both being ALPA will attempt to come to an agreement over how they will integrate. Usually this is possible with the top third of the group. After that, it gets more contentious. Do you have 2007 hired CAL pilots ahead of 1996 United pilots? Date of hire is only one part of the integration, but it's a big part too. How about the United furloughees, they were put on the street as United right sized for the merger. Do you have pilots with 10 yrs seniority at United on the street when CAL has pilots hired 2 years ago still on property? So, usually it goes to an arbitrator to help out with the integration.
So, you can see the problems, and why labor integration is the hardest part of a merger. You can do it poorly, like LCC did and have a war and lose any savings a merger may produce, or you can do it right like DAL/NWA did and immediately have everyone on the same page and making the merger work. Guess which one I think United management will choose
Both pilot groups are in contract negotiations. If the company were smart, they would negotiate a good contract for the pilots, making it worth it for them to come to a quick integration agreement. Both groups win, pilots with a new contract, management with the synergies they desire. The old saying goes, if both pilot groups don't like it, it was a good solution.
Originally Posted by
jackal
What dictates cruising altitude?
I was on a recent string of DL flights (ANC-SLC-ATL-LGA), and it seemed the shorter the flight, the higher we flew--you'd think it would be the reverse! (IIRC, the cruising altitudes for those flights were FL330, 350, and 390, respectively; aircraft were 753, 763, and 752, respectively.)
We did have substantial tailwinds on the first two (~100mph; I'm not sure about the third as there was no AVOD and hence no moving map). I assume that had something to do with it. But FL390 on a short, 700-mile flight? That seems like it would use more fuel to climb than it is worth saving being up that high for such a short time!
I know my experience was on DL, but I hoped our friendly UA pilots (and other pilots frequenting this thread) could speak in general terms about this subject.
Just varies really. Each flight is different, each plane is different. We have flight plan software that looks at winds, temps, distance, routing, etc.. and then figures out the optimal altitude, speed, and routing. If you have a tailwind, a lot of times it is optimal to go up high in a parabala flight path since you save fuel up at higher altitudes, even climbing if you are the optimal weight. If you have a strong headwind, it may be more prudent to step climb up at lower altitudes and higher speeds initially, or even stay down low. So, the answer is, it just depends on the situation and the day.
AD