Union says downsizing could halve regional pilot jobs at Envoy Air

Envoy Air may need only half as many pilots after American Airlines Group downsizes the regional carrier, the airline’s pilots union said Thursday.

In a note to pilots, the Air Line Pilots Association said American plans to park 59 small regional jets and transfer 47 larger regional jets away from its subsidiary carrier. As a result, Envoy will need 47 percent fewer pilots, the union said.

“Currently, the future looks very bleak,” said Bill Sprague, chairman of the union’s master executive council, adding that the carrier won’t have any aircraft to replace the ones it is losing.

Envoy has about 2,700 pilots. With current fleet plans, it will need only about 1,430 to staff its operations.

Envoy has 12,000 workers, although 8,000 are dedicated to ground services operations, in which it performs baggage-handling and gate operations for other airlines at smaller airports.

The news comes about a month after the pilots voted down a proposed union contract that would have provided Envoy with larger aircraft in exchange for a pay scale freeze until 2018 and other concessions.

During the contract talks, American Airlines Group management, which owns Envoy, had threatened to take regional aircraft away from Envoy if the pilots did not approve the contract.

Sprague said the company intends to park 59 Embraer 140s and transfer 47 CRJ-700s to another third-party regional carrier to operate under the American Eagle brand. No timetable has been set for the drawdown, he said.

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