United’s ALPA chooses new leadership
United’s ALPA union has elected a new leader to replace current chairman Wendy Morse. His name is Jay Heppner and his statements upon winning (Morse didn’t run for re-election) don’t lead me to believe that things will be better in getting the United and Continental pilots to agree to something.
Heppner sees this as being about a new contract and it is no secret that United’s ALPA see the new contract and integration being about getting big, fat raises. That’s a non-starter with United and, in particular, it is a bit insulting to the Continental pilots who upon integration, really do lose a bit of power as there are far more United pilots and many are far more senior than Continental pilots. Continental pilots have largely been smart and pragmatic about the new world order in the airline industry and really don’t deserve to be impacted by recalitrance.
Actually, amongst many other things, we see the new CBA bringing massive improvements to SCOPE protection, industry leading compensation and restoration of myriad bankruptcy decimated Quality of Life provisions. So, you seem to be a bit myopic in your focus on pay improvement.