I’ve been getting deep into the weeds looking at American’s fight with its mechanics and fleet service workers recently. Many years after the merger, there is still no joint contract, and prospects are grim. While I looked broadly at the issues in June, today I’m going to focus in …
The fight between American and the TWU/IAM unions representing mechanics and fleet service workers continues to get worse. Though American was able to obtain a temporary restraining order (TRO) preventing the mechanics from slowing down the airline, statistics show that things have not improved. American went back to court last …
I went through the short but tortured history of American’s negotiations with its mechanics and rampers yesterday, so today let’s get into exactly what is holding things back. In short… everything.
Ok, it’s not really everything, but there are big issues that are preventing a contract from being agreed upon. …
The rhetoric has ramped up dramatically, and the lengthy contract negotiation between American and both its mechanics and fleet service workers (aka rampers) has now spilled over into the public eye. American has sued for an injunction to prevent the mechanics from orchestrating what it says is a slowdown. (You …
At the International Aviation Forecast Summit last week, United President Scott Kirby was unsurprisingly in high demand. After his presentation, he took a few minutes to sit with a handful of media so we could fire questions at him. I asked Scott about “scope relief,” something I wrote about back …
This week’s featured link:
Lufthansa says not interested in taking over Alitalia – Financial Express
The worst airline ever continues to live up to its name. Just about to run out of cash, the airline turned to its unions to agree to a plan that would include big cuts. The …
Expanding service to most popular nonstop destinations from Cincinnati – Delta News Hub
Are you a mid-market former hub airport desperate to get your old hub airline to pay attention to you? Just attract Southwest. Southwest announced it was ditching Dayton for Cincinnati recently, and now Delta is ramping back …
It looks like the regional airline fight to hire enough pilots continues. Two of American’s wholly-owned regionals, Envoy and PSA, have announced they’re boosting starting pilot pay a ton in order to attract pilots. After years of never having to worry about finding someone to fly an airplane for cheap, …
Just before Labor Day weekend, Southwest’s pilots announced that they had come to an agreement with management on a new contract. Though a full tentative agreement isn’t out yet, early indications are that management almost entirely caved here. After 4 years of negotiating, the big question is now… why would …
This week’s featured link:
AA Announces New Profit Sharing Plan – American Airlines
American announced this week that it was finally giving in and starting to offer profit-sharing to employees. Everyone outside of top managers will get a share of 5 percent of pre-tax profits (the plan that was in …
It has been quite a tumultuous couple of weeks for American’s flight attendants. After mounting pressure, Laura Glading, the President of American’s flight attendant union, the Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA) submitted her resignation effective December 2. That apparently wasn’t enough for those trying to mount a recall, and …
Have you ever heard of a company filing for bankruptcy protection so that it can increase its costs? I’m going to guess not. Yet that’s what Republic appears to be saying may happen. As its pilots dig in on contract talks and its operation suffers, Republic is threatening bankruptcy. This …
