Airline Mergers

[V1.....UH_OH]

From airjet airline news wire, (a free newsbriefing service), I just read that AAL
is making a move for TWA. Well this now among the UAL and USAIRWAYS proposed deal, I am curious what anyone out there thinks about all these airline mergers. Are there any worries from those on the "bottom of the list" as to what may happen, or is that something that is covered under union contracts so as to protect all crewmembers involved. Not really ever having dealt directly with union issues, or have been in any, I am curious if anyone could enlighten me on how that may come into play. Also, curious is how that may affect the hiring process. Take care everyone!

[Violette]

I can tell you that all of us at UAL are worried about our seniority in regards to the proposed merger. I am a FA, not a PILOT but we now have aprox 26,000 FAs and if we take on USAir we gain aprox. 10,000 more and it seems that their (USAir's) contract states they will keep date of hire seniority. We are both AFA carriers and the UAL FA contract does not contain this protective language as does the USAir FAs contract. I am not sure what the case is for pilots. I do know that there is some confusing language in the UAL FA contract that states the company cannot operate 2 seperate airlines at once and until there is a new post-merge contract voted in, the USAir FAs may not be merged into our system. I am confused about all this myself. I guess the merger snowball has begun to roll. Maybe in the future there will be just a few airlines? Hmmm.. I don't know if this is the best for consumers. Happy flying! V.

[This message has been edited by Violette (edited January 09, 2001).]