Alaska Airlines, Virgin America and the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) reached a tentative merger agreement for the airline's 5,400 flight attendants, the organizations announced.

source:

http://atwonline.com/labor/alaska-virgi ... erger-deal

Thanks for posting this. Do we know how the seniority list integration will work?

5,400 flight attendants is one big group for the size of Alaska Airlines?

September11 wrote:

5,400 flight attendants is one big group for the size of Alaska Airlines?

~220 aircraft, seems about right to me.

Congratulations! Hopefully they have a seamless and fruitful integration of their two groups.

Congrats to the flight attendants from both sides!

SeaDoo wrote:

Thanks for posting this. Do we know how the seniority list integration will work?

Because both groups were AFA, the bylaws of the union spell out the process. Even if one group doesn't agree, the bylaws are the guide.

Because both groups were AFA, the bylaws of the union spell out the process. Even if one group doesn't agree, the bylaws are the guide.[/quote]

Do we know in this case what those bylaws read?

SeaDoo wrote:

Because both groups were AFA, the bylaws of the union spell out the process. Even if one group doesn't agree, the bylaws are the guide.

Do we know in this case what those bylaws read?[/quote]

AS is AFA, VX was TWU but no contract and then fell under AFA. AFA bylaws state date of hire integration for the seniority list.

Seniority integration will be strictly date of hire for flight attendants. AS hire dates will be adjusted to have the same criteria (currently VX is day 1 of training, AS is day after graduation)

Also, I'd recommend changing the title. The negotiations have resulted in a TA, but the flight attendants have not yet agreed to a new deal (although they probably will once voting opens up next month)

SeaDoo wrote:

Thanks for posting this. Do we know how the seniority list integration will work?

The most senior flight attendant at Virgin America will become approximately #2,025 out of about 5,400 system-wide once fully integrated with Alaska Air in March 2019.

scoping2008 wrote:

SeaDoo wrote:

Thanks for posting this. Do we know how the seniority list integration will work?

The most senior flight attendant at Virgin America will become approximately #2,025 out of about 5,400 system-wide once fully integrated with Alaska Air in March 2019.

Only because that's where the 10-year flight attendants are. It'll be strictly date of hire for flight attendant integration

packmedic wrote:

Seniority integration will be strictly date of hire for flight attendants. AS hire dates will be adjusted to have the same criteria (currently VX is day 1 of training, AS is day after graduation)

Also, I'd recommend changing the title. The negotiations have resulted in a TA, but the flight attendants have not yet agreed to a new deal (although they probably will once voting opens up next month)

Thanks for sharing the above information.

Date of hire seems simple and appropriate.

Why in other airline mergers have work groups had such a difficult time with this?

(Note: please exclude reference to AA/TWA)

questions wrote:

Date of hire seems simple and appropriate.

Why in other airline mergers have work groups had such a difficult time with this?

(Note: please exclude reference to AA/TWA)

My understanding is that the difficulty has been mostly with pilot workgroups because their unions take into consideration different factors when integrating pilot seniority (aircraft type, relative seniority, career seniority expectation, etc.).

The Association of Flight Attendants maintains that its "date-of-hire" protocol has been used as the standard for the big 3 mergers: Delta/Northwest (even though the flight attendants were not ultimately represented by AFA), United/Continental, and American/USAirways.

questions wrote:

Date of hire seems simple and appropriate.

Why in other airline mergers have work groups had such a difficult time with this?

Because, as in this case, the airlines being merged often have significantly different distributions of seniority among their individual ranks. A flight attendant with 10 years of seniority is at or near the top of the list at VX while his or her counterpart at AS is somewhere near the middle of the list there. It's not quite so bad as long as there are protections around the bases (i.e. you can't get bumped out) and/or the bases don't grow or shrink a lot, but in a hypothetical situation where AS were to ultimately reduce SFO significantly, the VX flight attendants would be forced out to other AS bases and end up with crummy lines or sitting reserve.

Pilots cant use straight DOH

They need a percentage factor as well.

FAs at VX accept that the top of their list goes in the 2000s at AS. Pilots will not except this. If they are 10 percent, they want to be near 10 percent.

DOH, percentage, career expectations...all taken into account when merging pilot lists..

Pilots COULD use date of hire. It would be just as fair for pilots as it is for FAs. (Why aren't base and the oh so fuzzy career expectations taken into account for FAs?)

It HASN'T been used for U.S. pilots in recent seniority list mergers because pilots have the leverage to shut down and kill a carrier. FAs don't.

MIflyer12 wrote:

Pilots COULD use date of hire. It would be just as fair for pilots as it is for FAs. (Why aren't base and the oh so fuzzy career expectations taken into account for FAs?)

It HASN'T been used for U.S. pilots in recent seniority list mergers because pilots have the leverage to shut down and kill a carrier. FAs don't.

Its not always straight DoH for FAs either. SWA and AirTran integrated with among other things, SWA getting something like +2.5 years added to their DoH on the integrated list and AirTran got protection in their Atlanta stronghold.

And FAs could shut down a airline just as quickly as Pilots if they remained united and determined. You can't fly a passenger plane one mile without the minimum amount of FAs anymore than you could missing one of the pilots.

MIflyer12 wrote:

Pilots COULD use date of hire. It would be just as fair for pilots as it is for FAs. (Why aren't base and the oh so fuzzy career expectations taken into account for FAs?)

It HASN'T been used for U.S. pilots in recent seniority list mergers because pilots have the leverage to shut down and kill a carrier. FAs don't.

How do their career expectations look after shutting down and killing the carrier?

questions wrote:

Date of hire seems simple and appropriate.

Why in other airline mergers have work groups had such a difficult time with this?

(Note: please exclude reference to AA/TWA)

Because with other airlines, when the successful airline is taking over an older airline, the employees do not feel they should be pushed to the bottom rescuing a failure.

In this case, the older airline bought the younger, so there is no issue.

TWA was a failed airline. Why should AA employees pay for their failure? If date of hire had been used, AA would have faced crippling strikes.

Personally, when there is a buyout, there should be an integration plan spelled out.

For example, USAir is an old airline. It didn't make sense to integrate until AA, a very senior airline, was brought in to dilute the impact.

VX was not a viable airline. They made Branson happy selling out (oh, he'd be happier getting his incredibly high license fees in an industry that averages 7% profit...).

This is the good times right now and it is telling that 100% of the Virgin airlines are struggling and even out right failing.

LIghtsaber

Yet UA/CO STILL aren't integrated!