MEC Hotline

This is Peter Blandino with the MEC Hotline
for Friday, February 21st.

On Monday, the Company responded to the
MEC on approximately 40 operational items that had remained in dispute
during the recent language writing sessions, and which had been discussed
with Jeff McClelland last week. Afterwards, the MEC met to discuss the
remaining operational items that had not yet been resolved and to finalize
a strategy for completing the contract language in order to get the TA
into your hands.

On Wednesday afternoon, the MEC Chairman
and Vice Chairman along with our Contract Administrator and negotiating
team member Andrew Shostack and ALPA Executive Administrator Howard Attarian
met with senior management to discuss finalizing the TA. One of the more
pertinent issues discussed was retirement. As most of you know, the Mediator’s
Proposal envisioned converting our industry-leading LTD program into an
industry-standard LTD program that would provide benefits through age
60 and redistributing those savings into a defined contribution retirement
plan. Failure to extract a meaningful savings from the LTD conversion
would leave us with current book in the retirement section plus the $920
per month retirement supplement from Contract 95. At Wednesday’s meeting,
Mr. McClelland made it clear that even though the Company is currently
trying to develop a meaningful savings from the LTD conversion to provide
a desirable defined benefit plan, he has little confidence the savings
will
be sufficient to justify trading away our industry-leading LTD benefit.
As such, and in accordance with the Mediator’s Proposal, we will stay
with current book, including the $920 per month retirement supplement.

Today, the MEC and the Company spent the
day proofreading the final language. Look for the complete TA to be available
for you to read on our website by Sunday afternoon. As soon as the TA
is posted, the electronic version will go to print in Herndon and be in
pilot mailboxes by the end of next week. The first road show is scheduled
for Friday, February 28th, at the Doubletree Hotel in Phoenix at 10:00
a.m. There will be two road shows the following week, one at the Doubletree
in Phoenix and a second one on Thursday evening at the Las Vegas airport.
More road shows will follow in the subsequent weeks. More specific information
on the road shows will be disseminated early next week.

Mark your calendars and make an effort
to attend a road show. There will be copies of the TA there for those
of you who haven’t yet received one. This is your opportunity to see what’s
new and different in the TA, afterwards there will be a comprehensive
question-and-answer period.

That’s all for tonight; the next regular
Hotline update is scheduled for Thursday, February 27th. Thanks for listening.