Will Meet Next Week With Congressional Leaders

Continental Airlines pilots will send their union leaders to Washington DC early next week, to meet with Congressional leaders. The union is protesting the Department of Transportation's planned slot auctions at New York/New Jersey airports.

"The auctions will do nothing to help airline passengers or ease congestion at these airports. Moving slots from one airline to another is no better than aimlessly shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic. These auctions needlessly threaten our pilots' jobs. We're not going to be silent and watch our airline's slots and our jobs be auctioned off to the highest bidder," says Capt. Jay Pierce, chairman of the Continental chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association.

"We are urging Congress to stop the DOT, particularly when the Congress, case law, administration practice and legislative history all support the viewpoint that the DOT does not have the legal authority to proceed."

Slightly less than half of Continental's approximately 5000 pilots are based in Newark. ALPA says they will be significantly impacted if Continental Airline's slots at Newark Liberty Airport are auctioned to other airlines.

"We could see a loss of up to ten percent of our flying from Newark," says Capt. Al Brandano, leader of the local union council in Newark. "Our pilots are demanding to know why jobs are being taken away, particularly when there's no benefit to the flying public, no benefit to the communities where these airports are located, no benefit to our airlines and certainly no benefit to airline employees."

In addition to meeting with members of Congress, union leaders recently implemented a campaign asking Continental pilots to write, call and e-mail their representatives. Similar action was undertaken by other employee groups at Continental Airlines. The union has also coordinated with Continental management in attempts to fight the slot auctions.

FMI: www.alpa.org