>>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. <<
Here's the Rocky Mountain News' account of what happened next:
...April 12, 2000, the date the pilots' old contract became amendable, came and went without a deal, even though executives had promised a seamless transition to a new contract. It was the date on which pilots were expecting to get raises - after six years of receiving lower pay in exchange for a 25 percent stake in the airline.
Joe Hopkins, a spokesman for United, acknowledges that negotiating sessions were canceled but disputes that it happened often.
"Our negotiators worked very hard in the spring and summer of 2000 to close the gap between the company's proposal and the union's demands," he said.
Still, the pilots felt burned when April 12, 2000, passed without a deal.
"It all started going downhill on April 12," Palazzolo said.
'Summer of hell'
Feeling betrayed, the pilots began to refuse to work overtime. They grew more defiant in May, when United announced the US Airways merger. The pilots opposed the deal because many would lose seniority to US Airways pilots and because they saw it as a flawed strategy.
The pilots' slowdown prompted more than 20,000 flight cancellations in summer 2000, infuriating travelers in what would be dubbed "the summer of hell."
When the pilots demanded a rich contract, Jim Goodwin, United's chief executive at the time, relented, hoping it would fix the carrier's problems. He also seemed to be trying to buy the pilots' support for the merger, experts said.
But the pilots' deal - providing raises of up to 28.5 percent - led to industry-leading contracts for other United workers and better pay for employees at other carriers. The industry's costs rose at a time when the economy was starting to slide.
"It was a completely absurd payoff to labor for labor peace," said Seattle-based aviation consultant Scott Hamilton.
The double-whammy of the U.S. recession, which prompted steep declines in high-margin business travel, and the Sept. 11 attacks, which weakened travel demand, has battered United, leaving it with not enough revenue to cover costs...
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drm...359784,00.html
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Anyway, as always, there is plenty of blame to go around. Asset sales and quite possibly liquidation are coming, white knights and sharks are circling the bankruptcy court as yet another once great airline wonders how the world can do without them...