jtr
Your point is well taken. I guess for some (perhaps many) a decade at CX is a whole career and the only timeline of immediate relevance.
To go further into history may draw scorn, so I leave those who are interested to do that for themselves.
Excuse me if I repeat myself, but by the early 90's cost structure had started to steadily eat away at competitiveness. Something had to be done and was. It is debatable as to whether it was done as well as it could have been, but the reality is that there is no easy way to degrade COS without creating ill will. This against a backdrop of an AOA that steadily became more of an adversary than ally.
My basic point is that the company has historically been a moral organisation and remains so to this day even though less personalised.
In order for this issue to be resolved once and for all, there must be a willingness to trust that this is the fundamental premise on which the management would wish to resolve the issue.
Closure will not be achieved by sheeting blame but by reaching a practical result that is fair to as many as possible.
Probably the final boarding call before the bags get offloaded.