American Airlines Pilots Move Labor Bargaining Up

The union for about 15,000 American Airlines Group Inc. pilots wants the company to begin negotiating a new contract in January—a year before negotiations would normally start—to address over-scheduling concerns.

The Allied Pilots Association’s existing contract with the airline “has a clause that either party can request early openers” for labor talks, union spokesman Dennis Tajer told Bloomberg Law Nov. 19.

“Today, we triggered that option with American Airlines” by sending the airline a letter requesting a January 2019 start to the negotiations, Tajer said.

Scheduling is a top issue for the pilots, Tajer said.

“When pilot schedules are not respected, our passenger schedules are not respected,” Tajer said. It’s harder for the airline to respond to emergencies—for example, by providing a well-rested pilot on short notice—without any slack in the scheduling system, he said.

Airline Recognizes Concerns

The company said it’s aware that scheduling is a concern.

“We’ve been working with the pilots over the past several years on contractual scheduling provisions,” American Airlines spokeswoman Leslie Mayo told Bloomberg Law Nov. 19.

The airline is “eager to build on that relationship as we enter negotiations,” she said.

The union in the upcoming talks is looking for improvements to overtime pay, which also would make it easier for the airline to respond to emergencies, Tajer said. In addition, the union wants changes to American’s existing profit-sharing program for pilots to make it more competitive with other airlines’ offerings, he said.

The pilots’ existing contract was ratified in early 2015. It was to become amendable in January 2020, meaning the parties originally agreed to a five-year contract.

Labor contracts for pilots and other airline employees don’t expire under the Railway Labor Act. The contracts instead become amendable at an agreed-upon time.

“Five years after emerging from bankruptcy, it’s time to move beyond a labor agreement borne out of a desperate era,” APA President Daniel Carey said in his letter to American Airlines CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom. “It’s time to change the way pilots are scheduled, the reliability of our operation, how passengers are served, and how the airline and its pilots work together,” Carey wrote.