Compels Union Pilots to Return to Status Quo

The U.S. District Court (Southern District of Florida) has granted a motion brought by Spirit Airlines for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and ordered a motion for a hearing for a Preliminary Injunction (PI).  The action was brought against the Airline Pilots Association, International (ALPA), the ALPA Master Executive Council (MEC) of Spirit pilots and individual officers, members and committee members of the MEC. Spirit commenced this action in order to protect its customers from further disruption due to an unlawful job action by Spirit pilots.

The federal court granted the company's TRO motions after Spirit detailed how ALPA and the other named defendants are purposely and unlawfully disrupting the airline's operations, leading to hundreds of canceled flights, which has negatively impacted thousands of Spirit customers' travel plans. Since last Thursday, the pilot actions have affected approximately 15 percent of flights across the network. The federal court hearing for the PI is scheduled for May 15, 2017.

"We sincerely apologize to our customers for the disruption and inconveniences they have suffered.  We believe this is the result of intimidation tactics by a limited number of our pilots affecting the behavior of the larger group.  We are also shocked and saddened by the events that took place yesterday at Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport and at other airports across our network," said Paul Berry, Spirit Airlines' spokesman.

"We are hopeful that we can put this moment behind us and get back to serving our customers."  added Berry.

(Source: Spirit Airlines news release. Image from file)

FMI: www.spirit.com