US Airways’ labor dispute with its pilots union has become one of the most contentious in an industry with a long history of fierce labor fights, and Charlotte fliers could be in for turbulence as the case goes to court.
Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways sued the pilots union in federal court late last month, accusing the union of conducting an illegal work slowdown to pressure the company in contract negotiations. The US Airline Pilots Association, based in Charlotte, denies the accusation, and says the company is trying to intimidate pilots and force them to fly unsafe planes.
“It’s hard to imagine them coming together,” said Seth Kaplan, who publishes the trade magazine Airline Weekly. “The two sides are really far apart.”
In its lawsuit, US Airways paints a picture of a union using safety concerns – sometimes sent anonymously, through emails from names such as “Pilot Bob” – as a subtle way of telling pilots to slow down the operation, a claim the union vigorously denies.
USAPA must file a response to the lawsuit by Aug. 15. After that, a hearing will likely be set, and a federal judge in Charlotte will decide whether to order the union to stop the alleged work slowdown.
It’s the latest hurdle for an airline that has survived bankruptcy court twice, successfully merged with another airline once and tried to merge three more times in the last decade. US Airways is the smallest of the nation’s big five airlines, behind Delta, American, United and Southwest, with about 8percent of the market.
But in Charlotte, US Airways is the biggest game in town. The city is the airline’s busiest hub, with some 6,900 employees based here. US Airways operates 90 percent of the daily flights at Charlotte/Douglas International. The airline claims the alleged slowdown is disproportionately affecting flights to and from Charlotte.
The problems stretch back a decade, to post-9/11 financial problems that pushed US Airways into bankruptcy court in 2002 and 2004. The pilots took salary and benefit cuts that the union says amounted to 50 percent to help the airline survive.
When US Airways merged with America West in 2005, the pilots were unable to agree on a combined seniority list, spawning lawsuits, slowing negotiations and amping up the bitterness.
“It’s the management vs. the pilots, then you have the pilots vs. the pilots,” Kaplan said. “It’s sort of like a love triangle, without the love.”
The conflict has escalated significantly this year. The pilots have accused US Airways of ignoring safety concerns in a rush to get planes in the air and demanded the ouster of the airline’s safety chief. USAPA has also sued the airline in federal court, alleging that it is dragging out negotiations.
US Airways, in its lawsuit filed July 29, says the union’s safety concerns are a smokescreen to slow down flights and put pressure on management.
The airline says the alleged work slowdown – involving tactics such as slow taxiing to and from the gate and unnecessary maintenance write-ups – could cost up to $377,000 a day, as well as delaying tens of thousands of passengers.
The pilots can’t go ahead and strike or openly engage in a work slowdown, because their negotiations fall under the Railway Labor Act. That federal law specifies that airline and rail unions can’t strike while under mediation, which can stretch indefinitely.
Air-travel writer Joe Brancatelli is still surprised that the airline’s labor problems have dragged on for so long.
“If you’d have told me in 2005 we’d all (still) be talking about a split union and a new contract, I’d be laughing at you,” he said. “It’s literally unprecedented.”
The sides remain far apart on the key issue: money. US Airways has said that it has offered the 4,200 pilots a raise of about $120 million a year to their approximately $680 million total compensation.
USAPA says the offer would still leave them as the lowest paid pilots in the industry; the airline has countered that the union’s demands would break the company.
“The biggest issue is the economics of it,” Kaplan said. “They are so far apart. If they could make the money work, they’d get over all the bad feelings.”
Alleged secret messages
Much of the lawsuit hinges on unusual, secretive messages the airline claims have been circulating among the pilots, telling them to slow down.
As an example, US Airways alleges that stickers bearing the message “+16” have been found on airplanes and clipboards – a signal to pilots to arrive late to the gate, the airline says. The U.S. Department of Transportation counts a plane as on time, an important measure for airlines, if is within 15 minutes of schedule.
Also, the airline cites union-produced safety videos telling pilots to close the door to flight attendants during pre-flight checks and to write up what the airline considers deferrable maintenance. Those are code words, the airline says, for slowing down operations.
The airline said pilots have been contacted by anonymous emails, such as one on April 25 from “Pilot Bob” at the address pilotsarepissedoff@gmail. com. According to the airline, the message described steps that were to be taken starting May 1, such as “Taxi speed is NO faster than a brisk walk” and “Reserve pilots just call in FATIGUED.”
Union spokesman Capt. James Ray said the union doesn’t sponsor or support any organized slowdowns, and has told pilots so. Ray said he doesn’t know where the alleged anonymous messages came from.
Moreover, he said, safety concerns are real. US Airways is trying to intimidate pilots into flying on time no matter what safety or maintenance issues they see, he said.
“Every cockpit that flies in and out of Charlotte, the conversation, I guarantee, is about job security and safety,” Ray said. “The safety issues are a huge concern. ... If flying a safe airplane means the operation has to slow down because the pilot wrote something in the logbook, that’s doing the right thing.”
Ray said 60 pilots have been called in for disciplinary hearings in response to writing up their maintenance concerns in the past month alone, and that a US Airways pilot was escorted out of the Philadelphia airport by security and put on leave for three weeks for refusing to fly a potentially unsafe plane.
Brancatelli said that if the airline is in fact calling in pilots for writing up safety issues, that would “smack of intimidation.”
Kaplan said unions would be ill-advised to use safety allegations to gain leverage at the negotiating table.
“You do run the risk, albeit a small risk, of a boy who cried wolf scenario,” Kaplan said. “You want to believe that when someone calls something unsafe, it really is a critical safety issue.”
Negative public image
Ongoing labor strife is unlikely to help US Airways improve its image with the public. The airline was recently named one of the nation’s 19 Most Hated Companies by The Atlantic magazine, which cited complaints such as proliferating fees (although Delta, United and American also made the list).
The airline’s on-time flights at Charlotte dropped from 86 percent in May 2010 to 73 percent in May this year, while remaining virtually unchanged at about 88 percent in Phoenix, according to government statistics. In its lawsuit, US Airways says the difference is because former America West pilots are based in Phoenix, and they have less loyalty to USAPA than the old US Airways pilots, based on the East Coast. The two pilot groups still operate separately.
Ray, the union spokesman, said Charlotte’s worse on-time percentage was due to bad weather in the South this spring, airport construction and operational changes, and denied that any concerted pilot effort is to blame.
Brancatelli said the largest impact on US Airways from passenger dissatisfaction is likely to be in cities with more choices than Charlotte. For example, in Philadelphia, passengers can drive an hour to Newark’s airport and avoid US Airways.
US Airways’ lawsuit says the airline could lose hundreds of millions of dollars if passengers start booking other airlines to avoid it – a particularly serious prospect in the face of sharply higher fuel prices.
The pilots’ issue is not the only labor problem US Airways faces. The airline is in mediated negotiations with its flight attendant and mechanics unions, and flight attendants at one of its wholly-owned subsidiaries are hinting at a strike.
As the airline continues to face high costs and the overall economic uncertainty, CEO Doug Parker has said a merger with some other carrier could be an attractive prospect. But the labor issues could stand in the way.
“Nobody wants them,” said Brancatelli, “partly because of the toxic labor situation.”
Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com
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