AIRCRAFT MECHANICS FRATERNAL ASSOCIATION
National Office: 14001 E. Iliff Avenue, Suite 217 • Aurora, CO 80014
Tel: 303.752.AMFA (2632) • Fax: 303.362.7736
AirTran Integration Forum Update #1
Lee Rhame and Jack Coonrod attended this first meeting in Dallas Thursday, December 9 from 1:00–
5:00PM. Mike Van devein was our host. The meeting was not work group or union specific but
included leaders from, I believe, all the unions currently on property.
The meeting started with introductions then went straight into a power point presentation showing the
route structure starting in 1975 and progressed in ten year increments up to 2006 then showed our
current route structure with two different symbols, one indicating AirTran’s current non-over lapping
destinations and the other showed the overlapping structure. This was followed by a short propaganda
film telling us what a great job we have done, at least up until this point.
The slide show continued throughout the meeting. The next subject was the Company integration
process, single operating certificate plan, and major milestone plan, with status reports to come from
the Master planning Team. This whole process involves numerous committees and teams
encompassing all aspects of the Company including maintenance.
Their timeline has been tentatively established as:
1. The Announcement date, the original press release date.
2. The Legal Close, this is the date SWA officially purchases AirTran, estimated to be March or
April 2011.
3. The Commercial Transition a period when AirTran begins a transition to look and operate like
SWA.
4. The Operational Close is when the Single Operating Certificate is received. This is estimated to
be 12–18 months after the Legal Close, the 1st or 2nd quarter of 2012.
5. Integration Close is when all merger operations have been completed and this is estimated to
take another 9 months or so.
The topics that followed were Aircraft Conversions plans, discussed City Transitions although no plans
available, and spoke to us about their Operational Overview.
Aircraft conversions would be in 3 phases.
1. Phase one is Fully AirTran, AirTran crews, livery, and op specs.
2. Phase two is a Hybrid, AirTran crews, and op specs, working on converted planes with SWA
name in either AirTran or SWA colors.
3. Phase three is Fully SWA, SWA crews, SWA planes.
SAFETY IN THE AIR BEGINS WITH QUALITY MAINTENANCE ON THE GROUND
For City Transitions they showed us no actual plan just an approach for demonstrational purposes:
1. To group stations by size and operations.
2. To switch from AirTran to SWA Ops, Labor, Branding, and Facilities, using some incomplete
formulas and criteria and some yet to be published timelines.
And lastly the Operational Overview included their integration team’s mission statement “Integrate the
Southwest and AirTran operational departments, facilities, systems, and equipment into a single airline
with the highest level of operational safety and efficiency,”
They went on to say this would all be accomplished maintaining safety, regulatory compliance, and the
highest level of customer service. That they would act on opportunities to improve employee
satisfaction and morale, adopt the best practices from each company, and continuously identify
opportunities for improved operational efficiencies.
Mike Van de Ven said that this group would meet once a month and that he would send out an email to
the attendees to determine the date and time of the next meeting in January.
Mike Ryan said that he would be happy to get answers for any questions our committee may have.
Brian Hirshman said that he would contact our Committee Chair with dates for additional meetings
with him concerning our specific issues.
Sincerely,
You’re Seniority Integration Committee Representatives
SAFETY IN THE AIR BEGINS WITH QUALITY MAINTENANCE ON THE GROUND