There was some interesting news out today concerning the tentative agreement between AirTran and its pilots.

While all TAs are important, this one has a little more behind it, as the airline and the pilot group don’t want to to into a potential merger situation with Midwest with no contract in place.

Apparently the National Pilots Association was in the midst of doing their road shows and talking to their membership and it became pretty clear that the rank and file were not going to vote to accept the TA.

Rather than go to a vote and an inevitable demise, the union and the airline have instead now postponed the vote, and both sides are going to be meeting under the watchful eye of the National Mediation Board next month in Washington, in an attempt to work out the issues that members of the union have cited as being the most objectionable.

Good for them. This is a decision that makes sense. Unless there’s more to this story that I don’t know about.