One of the unfortunate traditions of the airline biz are pilots’ unions engaging in slowdowns — taxing slower, only flying aircraft in absolutely perfect condition etc. — to try to pressure management to give them more money and the other things they want. US Airways’ management alleges that’s what the US Airline Pilots Association is currently up to. The union, for its part, denies it, which is, of course, to be expected.
And, yes this ties in to the integration dispute between pre-merger US Airways and America West pilots. Make no mistake, USAPA represents the interests of the pre-merger US Airways pilots and its actions are the primary reason why no permanent labor deal has been reached to date. The US Airways and America West pilots originally agreed to binding arbitration to sort out seniority for the merged airline. When the US Airways pilots didn’t like the outcome of the arbitration, they decided to form a new union (they out number the ex-America West pilots, so would won the union certification vote) which wants a seniority list that favors the US Airways pilots over the America West pilots. The ex-America West pilots will sue USAPA and the company the instant a contract is agreed to with those seniority conditions.
So now USAPA is claiming that US Airways is dragging its feet in negotiating a new deal, which would pay them more. That’s pretty cheeky of them. And let’s not forget that because of higher fuel prices, US Airways was only able to break even for the first half of the year.
Bonus observation: The UPoR made a subtle but important mistake in its coverage:
US Airways operates some 630 daily flights from Charlotte/Douglas International, about 90 percent of the airport’s total.
The US Airways brand does have about 630 flights a day from CLT. Only about 260 are on US Airways aircraft proper subject to the (alleged) slowdown. The other 370ish are on regional jets and turboprops operated under contract by the airline’s regional partners. How much of this the airline can do and using what sort of aircraft is set by scope clauses in US Airways’ contract with its pilots. So that’s also an issue, particularly the number of large regional jets (66 seat+, and soon to be fitted with a first-class section) that can can be used, in the currently stalled labor talks.
