An Emirates Airline A380 takes off at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. (Terry Maxon/DMN)
1. Airbus A380s really are impressively big when they fly by.
2. The contract vote by the Association of Professional Flight Attendants appears to have unified the American Airlines and US Airways flight attendants in this respect: Everybody is mad.
3. I’m counting on the day when there are no labor disputes to report in the airline industry. (I’m also counting on winning the lottery.)
Association of Professional Flight Attendants president Laura Glading told members Thursday that American Airlines appears firm that it won’t negotiate for a better contract for flight attendants.
Laura Glading (Terry Maxon/DMN)
“My discussions with the company – and there have been many – have confirmed that they are unwilling to make any moves that would in any way signal to our workgroup, as well as all the other groups on the property, that a No vote would result in anything other than what was promised: arbitration within the parameters outlined in the NPA,” Glading said, referring to the negotiations protocol agreement.
“I have been pushing for mediation and the possibility of discussing any and all possible relief but the company will only agree to meet to discuss arbitration protocol,” she told members in a letter.
In a vote counted Sunday, APFA members from American and merger partner US Airways voted 8,196 to 8,180 against a tentative agreement that had been worked out by APFA and company negotiators. The proposal would have combined the two carriers’ contracts under a single contract.
According to a memo of understanding and the NPA, the airline and union are to send unresolved contract matters to binding, third-party arbitration if the flight attendants turned down the deal. That arbitration is scheduled to begin Dec. 3, with hearings to wrap up by Dec. 30.
“It is time to start preparing for the next steps,” Glading said in her letter. “We need to put our absolute best foot forward in arbitration. It is imperative that we work together on creating the best possible outcome.”
Keep reading for the entire letter.
A day after American Airlines management proposed terms for a new contract, the head of the Allied Pilots Association said the proposal just won’t do.
APA president Keith Wilson said that the initial feedback from pilots “has been overwhelmingly negative. No disagreement here. Management’s initial proposals are seriously lacking on various fronts.”
Two issues stuck out, from Wilson’s letter: regional jets flown by other airlines on American’s behalf and the size of the proposed pay raises.
First, American’s proposal to raise the limit on smaller regional jets from 65 seats to 70 seats was a surprise, particularly given that AA president Scott Kirby had sent a letter saying that American was abandoning a proposal to add five seats to the 76-seat regional jets.
“When compared to the industry standard, what management has proposed would dramatically increase the number of 70-seat commuter aircraft and related capacity flown by regional affiliates,” Wilson said.
“In addition, management does not appear to be interested in providing our pilots with a compensation package comparable to industry leader Delta Air Lines,” Wilson said.
“While initially proposed pay rates are fractionally higher than Delta’s current pilot pay rates, there’s little adjustment for the absence of profit-sharing, which this year will equal 15 percent of annual earnings for Delta pilots. This means that American Airlines pilots’ compensation would continue to trail industry leader Delta by a significant margin,” he said.
“Meanwhile, our airline is producing its best-ever financial results, with forecasts of industry-leading profits and margins going forward. What’s wrong with this picture?” he asked.
Keep reading for Wilson’s letter.
We’ve heard from a number of American Airlines pilots today who were very unhappy about the company’s proposal.
In particular, they’re not happy with American’s proposal to increase the ceiling on the number of seats allowed on jets flying as American Eagle.
AA president Scott Kirby sent a conciliatory letter to the Allied Pilots Association board of directors Tuesday in which he said the company wouldn’t be putting forward its idea of raising the maximum seating on regional jets to 81 seats. The current limit is 76, applied to two airplane types – the Embraer E175 and Bombardier CRJ900.
But while American isn’t pushing for more seats on those airplanes, it is pushing to raise the seating limits of smaller RJs. The current ceiling on that group is 65 seats. American Airlines wants to raise it to 70 seats.
In addition, there is a desire for profit-sharing, which management does not want in any of its labor contracts. There was no profit-sharing in the flight attendant contract, voted down by Association of Professional Flight Attendants members.
The proposed pay rates are Delta’s rates plus 3 percent, we’re told. But Delta pilots also get profit-sharing, AA pilots are saying.
And, of course, there are dozens of other issues out there, too.
So we’ve got some interesting days ahead.
Delta jets lined up at New York Kennedy last spring. (Terry Maxon/DMN)
Traffic on 14 U.S. airlines increased 3.1 percent in October compared to a year earlier, outrunning a 2.3 percent climb in capacity.
Nine of the 14 showed higher load factors. The group, which comprises about all the carriers of any size, filled 82.9 percent of the seats flown, up 0.6 percentage points from October 2013.
Traffic: Thousands of revenue passenger miles
Capacity: Thousands of revenue passenger miles
Load factor: Percentage of seats filled with passengers
| Traffic | 2014 | 2013 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alaska | 2,208,000 | 2,019,000 | 9.4% |
| Allegiant | 546,761 | 443,418 | 23.3% |
| American | 15,931,046 | 16,005,407 | -0.5% |
| Delta | 15,159,347 | 14,331,092 | 5.8% |
| Great Lakes | 3,964 | 11,177 | -64.5% |
| Hawaiian | 1,183,654 | 1,167,578 | 1.4% |
| Horizon | 187,000 | 178,000 | 5.1% |
| JetBlue | 2,999,888 | 2,717,770 | 10.4% |
| Republic | 1,017,614 | 925,091 | 10.0% |
| SkyWest | 2,703,916 | 2,767,363 | -2.3% |
| Southwest | 8,989,543 | 8,610,484 | 4.4% |
| Spirit | 1,190,112 | 1,013,549 | 17.4% |
| United | 14,746,858 | 14,663,136 | 0.6% |
| Virgin America | 810,309 | 819,138 | -1.1% |
| Total | 67,678,012 | 65,672,203 | 3.1% |
| Capacity | 2014 | 2013 | Change |
| Alaska | 2,646,000 | 2,399,000 | 10.3% |
| Allegiant | 622,235 | 505,386 | 23.1% |
| American | 19,322,418 | 19,256,138 | 0.3% |
| Delta | 17,966,490 | 17,132,781 | 4.9% |
| Great Lakes | 8,823 | 26,959 | -67.3% |
| Hawaiian | 1,397,170 | 1,408,750 | -0.8% |
| Horizon | 238,000 | 225,000 | 5.8% |
| JetBlue | 3,593,558 | 3,338,233 | 7.6% |
| Republic | 1,277,364 | 1,208,688 | 5.7% |
| SkyWest | 3,291,772 | 3,399,040 | -3.2% |
| Southwest | 10,820,718 | 10,782,383 | 0.4% |
| Spirit | 1,384,459 | 1,165,454 | 18.8% |
| United | 18,082,646 | 17,918,322 | 0.9% |
| Virgin America | 988,118 | 1,015,383 | -2.7% |
| Total | 81,639,771 | 79,781,517 | 2.3% |
| Load factors | 2014 | 2013 | Change |
| Alaska | 83.4% | 84.2% | -0.7 |
| Allegiant | 87.9% | 87.7% | 0.1 |
| American | 82.4% | 83.1% | -0.7 |
| Delta | 84.4% | 83.6% | 0.7 |
| Great Lakes | 44.9% | 41.5% | 3.5 |
| Hawaiian | 84.7% | 82.9% | 1.8 |
| Horizon | 78.6% | 79.1% | -0.5 |
| JetBlue | 83.5% | 81.4% | 2.1 |
| Republic | 79.7% | 76.5% | 3.1 |
| SkyWest | 82.1% | 81.4% | 0.7 |
| Southwest | 83.1% | 79.9% | 3.2 |
| Spirit | 86.0% | 87.0% | -1.0 |
| United | 81.6% | 81.8% | -0.3 |
| Virgin America | 82.0% | 80.7% | 1.3 |
| Total | 82.9% | 82.3% | 0.6 |
This Airbus A350 rolled out of the Airbus factory in Toulouse, France, in early October. (Airbus)
The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday gave the Airbus A350-900 its type certification, Airbus said, following the European Safety Agency’s Sept. 30 certification.
Airbus said FAA association administrator of aviation safety Peggy Gillian and Airbus Group chairman Allan T. McArtor were among those at the signing ceremony.
The approval clears the way for delivery of the first A350 to Qatar Airways before year’s end.
This test A350 paid a stop in May at the D/FW hangar of American Airlines, which has 22 A350s on order between 2017 and 2019. (Terry Maxon/DMN)
The Association of Professional Flight Attendants put out this hotline Tuesday night, and seems to be designed to squelch any rumors that the union and American Airlines will reopen contract talks in advance of binding arbitration in December:
“The company has responded to APFA’s request for mediation and has agreed to meet. The parties are in the process of scheduling meetings for next week. The company has made clear that mediation will be restricted to narrowing the issues to be presented in arbitration and determining the arbitration protocol.
“As soon as the dates are finalized, APFA will update the membership.”
By a 16-vote margin, APFA members have voted down a tentative agreement negotiated with Aemrican. Per a previous agreement, unresolved issues will now go to third-party, binding arbitration.
American Eagle airplanes like this Bombardier CRJ-900 flown by AA subsidiary PSA Airlines are now limited to 76 seats by the American Airlines pilot contract. (Sheryl Jean/DMN)
American Airlines management Tuesday headed off a potential confrontation with its pilots’ union by killing a proposal to put more seats on its regional airplanes.
American gave a proposed contract to the Allied Pilots Association on Tuesday, but without a request to raise the limit of seats on regional airplanes from 76 seats, the current limit, to 81 seats.
Scott Kirby
In a letter to the APA board of directors, AA president Scott Kirby said adding the seats on the regional airplanes – which are not flown by American Airlines pilots – could have meant tens of millions of dollars in additional revenue for American Airlines Group.
However, Kirby said the company left the seat-increase request out of its contract proposal as a gesture of good will to AA pilots:
“Our proposal gives American pilots the highest pay rates amongst our large, network peers, and does so well before anyone could have contemplated. It is my hope that as we build a stronger, more trusting relationship that, together, we will be able to reach the best economic considerations for the 100,000 employees of American and the Company in the future.
“So today we take an important step to jumpstart the trust-building process. We would ask each of you move forward in a similar spirit. Building the new American requires all of us to think differently about how we work together – your management team is committed to a new approach and we look forward to working with APA to restore American to greatness.”
Kirby had been talking up the idea of boosting the maximum seating on regional airplanes for some time. However, the union had made it clear that the idea wasn’t acceptable.
In an Oct. 28 message to members, APA president Keith Wilson said the union had seen some hints that the airline was going to tie a better contract to allowing more seats.
“That would be a mistake,” Wilson stated. “To be clear, the current industry-standard size limitation for commuter aircraft is 76 seats/86,000 maximum takeoff weight, and we’re not interested in anything that weakens that standard.”
American and APA launched talks July 8 on a joint contract that would combine the existing American and US Airways contracts. The two carriers merged under the American Airlines Group umbrella on Dec. 9, 2013.
The union and management had been under an Oct. 16 deadline to wrap up a deal, but agreed to extend the deadline to Saturday, Nov. 15. According to a “memo of understanding,” they’ll submit the contract to binding arbitration if they don’t reach a tentative agreement by that date.
APA and American have been battling for several decades over the issue of “scope,” or who does the flying for American Airlines. The line had been drawn at 50 seats – American Eagle would fly airplanes with 50 seats or fewer and American would fly airplanes with more than 50 seats.
Then, the company won an exception to allow turboprop airplanes up to 70 seats that were flown by American Eagle. Then, American got the union to agree to allow up to 50 jets with up to 70 seats, of which American acquired 47.
In the 2012 contract hammered out during American’s bankruptcy case, American insisted on and won the right to fly hundreds of larger regional jets, and the ceiling was raised from 70 seats to 76 seats.
Right now, Republic Airlines and AA subsidiary PSA Airlines fly 76-seat jets under the American Eagle brand. Compass Airlines has contracted to begin operating 20 76-seat jets as American Eagle early next year.
Keep reading for the entire Kirby letter.
Since we on Monday posted 10 possible reasons that Association of Professional Flight Attendants members voted against a tentative agreement, we’ve received a handful of emails from flight attendants or family members to discuss the rejection of a tentative agreement.
We received this one overnight from one flight attendant:
You are correct Terry.
There are a lot of reasons and you hit on several of them.
But for me personally, the reason that I voted NO on this Tentative Agreement was because we were told that Profit Sharing was “built into the raises” in this T.A. That was incorrect, a distortion, or outright LIE – depending on how you choose to look at it.
I have a sister who flies for Delta, who will receive the exact same pay rates as was contained in this contract offer PLUS an 15% of earnings in Profit Sharing.
The AA-APFA Agreement had no profit sharing.
Remember Delta is receiving the same pay raises as this proposal contained PLUS AN ADDITIONAL 15% of their pay in profit sharing ON TOP OF the raises that we were presented with.
This contract was clearly not even “industry standard” – let alone “industry leading.”
Further, there were A LOT of additional post-bankruptcy concessions contained in AA’s proposal – we were never given the valuation of those additional concessions and were told by our Union that those numbers were “confidential.”
What was painfully apparent to most NO voters was the fact that the Company offered $82 Million in pay raises with one hand, and turned right around and took back $82 Million in work rule and productivity concessions with the other hand.
Hope that helps you understand a little bit more about WHY we voted NO.
And here’s one from this morning from the spouse of an American Airlines flight attendant:
Great article but you, as well as every other journalist commenting on “WHY”, has completely missed the point of why. It’s actually quite simple. Both Management and the APFA were pounding the table on this being an “INDUSTRY LEADING” contract which is a total mischaracterization of the facts. If you really want to be a contributor and deliverer of real news, please start by first doing your job and ferret out the “real” facts. Go ask both the company and Laura Gladding to explain (in irrefutable and validated) detail how it was industry leading – You need look no further than Delta and Southwest Flight Attendants to realize that is a completely incorrect and incompetent statement. APFA, once again, lost sight of what their members wanted and needed. Isn’t it amazing what Delta Flight Attendants are able to accomplish and enjoy, and all without representation. In summary Terry, just ask yourself one simple question…. If the contract was so good and industry leading – then why did they turn it down?
My answer to letter writer #2, with some amendments:
First, you should consider that airline reporters don’t have any skin in the game. It’s irrelevant to us whether the contract passes or fails, or whether it’s a good contract or a bad one in the eyes of one side or the other. We just report on the outcome of the vote and its potential impact for readers.
If we did want to make an independent judgment of how the rejected contract compared to the contracts of other airlines, we’d need a team of labor specialists, accountants and cost analysts to dissect the contracts of all the carriers. You can’t point to simply one thing or another – pay rates, health insurance premiums, profit sharing or scheduling – to make that comparison. You have to cost out everything.
What is hardest to cost out is the impact of work rules, scheduling, duty rigs, etc. It’s generally believed that Delta and Southwest work rules are more productive (and less favorable to flight attendants) than those of United, Continental and American. That enters into the cost of the various contracts and the determination of “industry-leading.” That’s where the team of experts would come in. If given the choice, I don’t think AA flight attendants would accept the Southwest contract or the Delta way of working and compensating its flight attendants. But we’ll never know. Maybe they would.
I think many American Airlines and US Airways flight attendants thought of these contract negotiations and the tentative agreement in terms of the traditional contract talks under Section 6 of the Railway Labor Act. In that case, if a tentative agreement failed, the two sides could resume talking until there was an agreement or they reached an impasse.
That’s not the case here. We don’t have amendable contracts at the end of their terms. Both American and US Airways are operating under contracts with years to go on them. This is a non-RLA negotiation to get a joint contract covering both carriers’ employees, and the process was spelled out in a memorandum of understanding before the merger.
That MOU set a deadline to get a joint bargaining agreement; required that the disputed items would go to binding arbitration if the union rejected a tentative agreement; and set a $111 million limit in added economic value to the current contracts if there wasn’t a consensual agreement.
Perhaps flight attendants who voted didn’t believe that the MOU would be enforced. Perhaps many thought that the union and company would simply sit down for a new set of talks and that AA management would bring more money to the table.
It remains to be seen if that happens. There’s no sign that’ll happen. However, the two sides are going to mediation in advance of arbitration. You never know.
But if the MOU is enforced, the contract that comes out of binding arbitration is going to provide less value to AA-US flight attendants than the one they turned down. The union and company said the rejected contract gave flight attendants $193 million in added value, versus the $111 million ceiling on an arbitrated contract. One can accept those figures or reject them, but there they are. If that is the outcome, a majority of American and US Airways flight attendants turned down a contract they considered bad to get a contract that, in monetary value, will be worse.
One other thought: American management has every incentive to make peace with flight attendants. But if it backs away from the flight attendant MOU, it may be telling the other unions that they don’t need to worry about their own MOUs, that in the end the company will cave. That’s probably not the message management wants to send. That’s the problem with going first – you set the precedent, one way or the other.
Southwest Airlines airplanes line up at the gate at Dallas Love Field. (Terry Maxon/DMN)
Southwest Airlines plans to launch service to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, out of Orange County, Calif., on June 7, 2015, Southwest Airlines chairman and CEO Gary Kelly said Monday.
Speaking at an investors’ conference at its Southwest headquarters, Kelly said Southwest expects to add two more international destinations in 2015 and “I suppose there could be one more.”
Those cities are in addition to Southwest’s previous announcement it will begin flying to San Jose, Costa Rica, from Baltimore in March. With San Jose and Puerto Vallerta, Southwest will be up to nine non-U.S. destinations.
Southwest began flying internationally in July when it took over three destinations served by merger partner AirTran Airways. It finished absorbing AirTran’s international network serving seven non-U.S. cities in early November.
Kelly also said that its new nonstop service out of Dallas Love Field is going “extremely well.” Load factors are averaging over 90 percent on the 49 additional flights it is offering beyond the old Wright amendment area, Kelly said.
“Dallas Love Field is the majority of what I would call our normal growth in 2015, and it’s obviously all domestic,” Kelly said.
Chief financial officer Tammy Romo expanded that to say that half of Southwest’s capacity growth in 2015, in available seat miles flown, would be at Dallas Love Field. A lot of that is the longer stage lengths — Romo said the average stage length out of Love Field will be 70 percent higher in 2015 than in 2014.
Kelly said Southwest expects to end 2015 with about 700 airplanes, about the same as today. But it expects to begin growing the fleet in 2016, 2017 and 2018, at a percentage rate in the low single digits, Kelly said.