United Discussions Continue, Scope Talks to Continue Next Week
Earlier this week, the United Negotiating Team, “Field Service” sub-committee, convened for two days of meetings at the
Senate Approves FAA Reauthorization, S.3048 Not Included, Minimum Experience for Airline Pilot Employment Still to Be Resolved
On March 22nd the US Senate unanimously approved its version of the FAA Reauthorization Bill. A bill offered by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), S.3048, the so called "Pilot's Professionalism Assurance Act," that would have allowed the use of Cockpit Voice Recorder data by management for punitive action against pilots was defeated and not included in the reauthorization.
HR 3371, a bill which pertains to pilot training was combined by the Rules Committee into the House version of the FAA Reauthorization Bill. That bill will be combined with the Senate bill when Congress returns from Easter recess next week. An outcome of the Colgan 3407 crash in
“We believe that having pilots with structured experience is critical to passenger safety in both Part 121 and Part 135 operations,” said Airline Division Director David Bourne. “The travelling public has the right to expect the highest levels of experience and professionalism every time they fly,” he continued. “I promised the families of Colgan 3407 that we would work with our friends on Capitol Hill to make this a reality and reduce the chances of such an accident ever happening again. We will keep working on this and not stop,” he concluded.
AAWW Discussions Move to Arbitration
After reaching the end of a mutually agreed to extension for reaching a joint combined contract that would conclude the merger of the Atlas and Polar crew forces, a decision was made to move forward with the selection of an arbitrator to conclude the process. By joint agreement of the union and company, Arbitrator Richard Kasher was selected to arbitrate the remaining issues.
“We’re very pleased with the selection of Arbitrator Kasher,” said Captain Steve Richards, co-chairman of the AAWW Executive Council at Local 1224. “He has years of airline related experience to the table and is well respected by both management and labor. His also brings a level of experience on Scope and System Board matters that we feel are assets as we begin this final phase to complete a new joint contract for our crewmembers,” he added. “Additionally, by coming to a joint agreement with the company on his selection means we would not have run the risk of having someone with potentially less depth of experience on the matters we need to resolve,” he concluded.
Continental Shows Solid March Numbers
A year ago, Continental Airlines was suffering from the effects of a severe drop in demand from business travelers. One year later, with improving transatlantic demand, passengers paying higher average airfares and improved capacity management that resulted in fuller planes, transatlantic traffic increased 6.3% last month while capacity went down 2.4%, with year to day, transatlantic demand up 8.2%, according to the airline.
Continental, the nation’s fifth largest airline in terms of available seat miles, said their mainline traffic for March rose 5.5% compared to last year while it added just 0.8% in additional capacity. Their load factor, which represents the percentage of a flight filled with passengers, was up 3.7% to 83.6%.
Increased demand and record load factors have translated into higher average ticket prices as well, with mainline unit revenue increasing an estimated 13% to 14% in March, up from February’s 5.8%.
When factoring in their regional carriers, Continental’s consolidated unit revenue in March increased 14.5% to 15.5%, up from the 7.7% increase in February.
Their numbers exceeded the 13% target from analysts at J.P. Morgan, who had determined Continental's average airfare rose 9.8% from a year ago, lifting passenger revenue by 15.6%.
In addition to passenger ticket revenue, Continental, like other
Week In Review News Items
Labor Developments
British Airways and unions resumed talks aimed at preventing further strikes by cabin crew in a the row over pay and jobs…United Airlines said on Monday it would bring its flight attendants up to the pay scale of their counterparts at Continental Airlines in exchange for changes in work rules…U.S. treasury secretary Timothy Geithner on Tuesday said, “Outsourcing would make us weaker not stronger.
Regulatory
Two basic agreements in the information exchange system for combating international terrorism will be the focal point of the ministerial meeting between the EU and the USA, to be held this Friday at the El Pardo Palace, in the outskirts of Madrid…the European Commission is seeking the right for its citizens to sue in American courts if they believe that airline passenger data transmitted to the U.S. has been misused — part of a new bid to make protecting privacy compatible with fighting terror.
IATA reported that demand for passenger travel and cargo transport "continues to rise strongly," but noted that carriers are adding back capacity "at a cautious pace," leading to a slower rise in yields…travel agency remittances through ARC rebounded strongly in March from a depressed 2009, rising 29% to nearly $7.6 billion.
Airline Industry Structure
British Airways and the Spanish airline Iberia have signed a merger agreement, formalizing a long-awaited deal to create one of the world’s largest airline groups to compete with rivals such as Air France-KLM and Lufthansa, the companies announced Thursday…WestJet was signaling and the media was trumpeting, but apparently everyone forgot to tell Southwest Airlines that its proposed codeshare agreement with WestJet was in jeopardy…and Japan Airlines will submit a reorganization plan by the end of June that includes cutting 47-51 routes, according to reports by multiple Japanese media outlets.
Proposed US Airways – United Airlines Merger
Time finally may be on United Airlines' side as the carrier's executives, staunch proponents of consolidation, again explore a merger. The underlying financial dynamics of the airline industry have greatly improved since 2008, when Chicago-based United and other
Miscellaneous
This is – yet again – the year of the mobile in travel. But there are many reasons why mobile currently doesn’t work…an Air Canada passenger says he was left sleeping for 90 minutes after his flight arrived in Vancouver. The flight from Calgary landed at its destination, completely deplaned and taxied to a hangar before Kris Lines was awaken…a drunken man was found sleeping in the engine of an Indian Airlines A320 aircraft as it was being prepared for take-off…Tom Belden, Winging It blog, Philadelphia Inquirer: There is no charge yet for carrying on a cane or coat, or if you're wearing clothes when boarding…and there are times when airlines seem totally incapable of responding to the simplest of questions, and an angry flyer in Darwin has just had one of them with Jetstar…to avoid fines that could total millions of dollars per flight if passengers were left stranded on tarmacs longer than three hours, US Airways said its planes would return to the gate after 21/2 hours, unless takeoff were imminent.