Bean counter,
owning an airline vs controlling an airline are 2 different things. Once they pick the ceo there is nothing to stop them from doing very stupid things.
The whole IDEA of the ESOP was that the employees would take an enourmous pay cut for 5 years to buy the airline, at the end of five years they would have a seamless contract with a cost of living adjustment, instead of the usual 2 years of insanity during the "negotiating process". Well, once they had the ceo wass picked he went off to business as usual and forgot that he was supposed to get along with the employees, so he engineered a buy out of USAIR that would make him rich while harming the employees, started avolar.... The employees couldn't stop it either.
In the mean time contracts were allowed to expire without the "seamless transition" that had been promised. So rather than a mild cost of living adjustment that would have been a couple of percent, GOODWIN so soured the relationship that it would take 26 percent to settle the problem. As goodwin was busy buring down the airline anyway (Usair, Avolar, and a host of other exceptionally stupid moves) what difference did it make? WHile the unions could veto a pick, they couldn't impeach one that was sitting.
Cheers
Wino