ALPA sent me this today ...

Fellow Pilots,

This update is about the pending merger with Southwest Airlines.[/font]
Yesterday, February 28, 2011, I received a letter from Mr. Michael Van de Ven, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Southwest Airlines. In his letter, Mr. Van de Van agreed that, if the merger transaction closes, Southwest will be a successor to AirTran as defined in Section 1.D.1. of our collective bargaining agreement (CBA). Accordingly, Mr. Van de Ven committed, as required by Section 1.D.2. of our agreement, that “during the period of separate Pilot operations following close, Southwest will adhere to and apply the provisions of the AirTran/ALPA Agreement to AirTran pilots, unless and until that Agreement is changed pursuant to the Railway Labor Act.”

In his letter, Mr. Van de Ven also stated that Southwest is both statutorily and contractually bound to follow the requirements of Sections 3 and 13 of the Allegheny-Mohawk labor protective provisions, and that it is Southwest’s intent to fully support the process being negotiated by ALPA and SWAPA and abide by its results.

We are pleased by the above commitments.

Mr. Van de Ven’s letter, however, also spoke about the questions of how and when flight operations will be combined, saying that there are still many questions to be answered and that Southwest intends to engage in “meaningful dialogue” with us on these issues at the “appropriate time.” In the meantime, until there is a single pilot representative for the Southwest pilots, Mr. Van de Ven stated that we should continue to deal with AirTran management and that Southwest will continue to work with SWAPA to establish a framework for an orderly transition.

On these latter subjects, I am sending a letter to Mr. Van de Ven and to SWAPA President Steve Chase reminding them both that the ALPA AirTran CBA contains a schedule for operational merger, and that this schedule can only be modified by agreement, and further encouraging the parties to start four-party discussions for that purpose. The letter also points out provisions of the SWAPA transition agreement that appear to be inconsistent with the ALPA AirTran CBA.[/font]

Our Merger Committee is meeting today with SWAPA’s Merger Committee to try to complete the process agreement for seniority list integration.[/font]


I will continue to keep you posted on developments.

In unity,
Linden Hillman, Chairman
ATN Master Executive Council

Of course I'm glad to see ALPA fighting for us ... but I can't help but wonder if they are picking the wrong fight at the wrong time.

Are they risking killing the whole deal just so ALPA can be involved and relevant? I need to think about this a lot more, but my initial feeling is that ALPA is engaged in a high risk game with our careers on the line ...