February 17, 2009 News Letter

Airline Division News Items

Teamster/United Working Committee on Garage and Building Mechanics

The working committee composed of a United cross functional group and Teamster stewards and business agents familiar with local QC and PV work at Boston, Honolulu, JFK, LaGuardia, Newark, Philadelphia, Portland San Diego and Seattle met in Chicago on Monday and Tuesday.  The committee is charged with finding ways to deliver quality service for GSE and Facility Maintenance while reducing total costs of ownership at these nine stations.  The committee had productive meetings and exchanged ideas and data.  Further meeting and conference calls will be held in the coming weeks.

United Mechanics Steering Committee

The United Steering Committee met on Wednesday and Thursday.  Good progress was made.  The next meeting will be a five day session the week of March 16th.  The committee hopes to have the non-economic issues ready for presentation to the carrier by April 1st.

Congressman Oberstar to Push for Tighter Restrictions on Foreign Ownership

Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., is making the push as part of a broad "reauthorization" bill for the Federal Aviation Administration.  The bill, introduced by Oberstar this week, would spell out what activities of a U.S. airline must be controlled by U.S. citizens.  Current law allows the U.S. government to determine the matter case by case.  Specifically, Oberstar's bill would require that U.S. citizens "control all matters pertaining to the business and structure of the air carrier, including operational matters such as marketing, branding, fleet composition, route selection, pricing, and labor relations."

Preparations for Express Jet Airline Section 6 Opening to Get Underway Shortly

The Express Jet Mechanics and Related contract is amendable on July 31, 2009.  A Section 6 opening letter will be sent soon, and a survey of members to gather their input on issues for the new contract will go out within about a month according to Charlie Alferio, of Local 964.

Week in Review News Items

Labor Developments

Pilots' union officials are complaining that the chief executive of American Airlines and its parent won't meet the union's president to discuss stalled contract talks. Employees want to recover wage cuts they took in 2003, but the company, which lost $2.1 billion last year, wants to hold the line on spending. US Airways became the latest U.S. company to announce layoffs Tuesday, saying reduced flying means it needs 233 fewer airport support positions. On a brighter note, United Airlines said it plans to shift 165 customer service jobs from India and Mexico to giant call centers outside Chicago and Honolulu as it overhauls how it fields passenger feedback about its flights.  

Airline Tragedies

A passenger plane carrying 48 people crashed last night while approaching Buffalo airport in New York state. The crash killed all on board and one person on the ground. US air accident investigators are expected to examine the role played by freezing weather conditions as they begin the task of trying to find out what caused flight 3407 to crash. And in Brazil rescue workers recovered 24 bodies on Sunday from the bottom of a river in the Amazon jungle after a plane crashed in bad weather.

Safety & Compliance

The Federal Aviation Administration has shut down a Miami maintenance shop that returned more than a dozen landing-gear parts to three airlines, saying the parts were inadequately repaired. The shop's work was also investigated after a 2007 landing gear failure in Charlotte.

Air Travel Demand

Passenger traffic on U.S. carriers dipped nearly 13 percent in November, the largest monthly decline in nearly seven years and another sign of the erosion in travel demand. As airlines cope with a decline in travel, spring break fares are down about 9 percent overall, for example, in Atlanta, compared with last year. To make matters worse, the global economic storm is hitting what once was the most profitable part of the airline industry: international travel. With demand for international trips in free fall, most U.S. and foreign airlines are cutting international service to and from the USA. And Air France-KLM, Europe's largest airline has plunged into the red and is being forced to shrink its operations to cut costs.

WestJet Bucks the Trend

WestJet reported 2008 net income of C$178.1 million ($145.2 million), down 7.6% from C$192.8 million in 2007, hailing the performance in a "roller coaster year" in which nearly all North American airlines posted losses. "This is another great news day for WestJet," President and CEO Sean Durfy told analysts yesterday, noting that the annual income was the second-highest in the LCC's history. He said WS's solid cash position (C$820 million on Dec. 31), low cost model and positive brand awareness "ensure that we will continue to be profitable." Fourth-quarter net income of C$40.8 million was down 45.9% from C$75.4 million in the year-ago period but nevertheless marked the carrier's 15th consecutive quarter in the black.

Wi-Fi in the Sky

For all the annoyance of being crammed into an aluminum tube at 35,000 feet with a bunch of strangers, air travel has offered one benefit: the ability to tell bosses and colleagues, "I'll be on a flight, so you won't be able to reach me." So much for that excuse. Wireless Internet service is starting to spread among airlines in the United States: Delta and American have installed it on more than a dozen planes each, and several other carriers are planning to test it. North Texas travelers got their first chance to try in-flight Internet access Tuesday, after Southwest Airlines launched a test of the service on a flight from Dallas Love Field.