Lambsie, what your saying refers to mainline issues. I was trying to explain how the system would work for J*, Eastern & Sunstate - they basically will have control of their own negotiations with support from the industrial staff at AIPA. I understand the perception out there that -400 captains look after themselves at AIPA but the problem is that COM members from other fleets do not have enough time off to do all the work so it inevitably is left to -400 pilots. EBA's 5 & 6 did have B767 issues at the forefront of negotiations with significant protections built into the Certified Agreement wrt domestic flying. A lot of current pilots have forgotten how bad it was prior to those EBA's.
Professional negotiators is a great idea, except for the fact that it takes a long time for them to get their head around the implications of any changes on a flying profession. What seems acceptable to a desk bound professional may be totally unsuitable to a pilot. It's a much shorter time frame to train pilots in industrial negotiations (with industrial staff/lawyers present at negotiations). The current AIPA negotiators did have training with a professional prior to the commencement of negotiations with Oldmeadow's team of thugs and standard procedure is that no agreement is considered firm at the meetings so that they can return to the AIPA offices and dissect all the discussions at length to look for any hidden long term consequences.
I know, at times of major disenchantment with the direction that Dixon is taking this company, it is easy to say that AIPA is not doing enough for each group (eg B767) but that is simply falling for Oldmeadow's traps - we must remain united as a pilot group to achieve the best outcome.