Tue, Sep 27, 2016
ALPA: Airline Refuses To Offer Pilots Industry-Standard Terms While Earning Record Profits
Frontier Airlines pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA), have asked for a federal mediator to help move their contract talks forward, stating that Frontier Airlines refuses to offer its pilots industry-standard terms while the airline is making record profits.
ALPA filed a mediation request with the National Mediation Board (NMB) on September 22. Once the NMB approves the request, a federal mediator will take control of the bargaining schedule and oversee negotiations going forward. The two sides have been in negotiations since March 2016.
“We are the lowest-paid narrowbody jet pilots in the United States, and we continue to work under a 2011 concessionary contract in which we sacrificed $55 million to keep the airline flying,” said Capt. Brian Ketchum, chairman of ALPA’s Frontier Airlines Master Executive Council. “We are completely dissatisfied with both the substance and the pace of our negotiations, and we ask the NMB to help us reach a new agreement that recognizes our pilots’ worth to the company without further delay.”
Public statements by Frontier executives and the airline’s financial reports show that the airline is highly profitable, with management employees receiving hefty bonuses earlier this year. But at the bargaining table, management seeks to make pilots pay for any future potential wage increases with unprecedented changes to their work rules, including additional days of work.
“It’s time that Frontier pilots join their peers in the rest of the industry,” Ketchum said. “We hope that the assistance of the NMB will allow us to reach a consensual agreement with management that recognizes our contributions to Frontier’s growth and profitability.”
Under the Railway Labor Act, the federal law that regulates airline and railroad employees, once the NMB accepts the pilots’ request for mediation, talks will continue either until the pilots reach a contract or until the NMB releases the parties into a 30-day cooling-off period, which could be followed by either group exercising self-help options, including a strike by the pilots.
(Source: ALPA news release. Image from file)
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