Teamsters, Omni Air Pilots Announce Tentative Agreement with Company
Negotiators of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Airline Division and the Executive Council of Omni Air (Local 1224) today have announced the conclusion of a Tentative Agreement (TA) with Omni management.
The agreement, which is the first contract for the pilots, was reached after years of negotiations and includes substantial pay and benefit increases for the pilots and scope provisions to protect jobs and quality of life.
Omni operates a fleet that includes Boeing 757, 767 and 777 aircraft, providing ACMI (aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance) services in addition to cargo and troop airlift for the U.S. military under a contract with AMC (Air Mobility Command)
“We’re pleased to have concluded this first tentative agreement for the Omni pilots,” said Airline Division International Representative Captain Scott Hegland. “In addition to some very solid scope protection language, the crewmembers will see an aggregate 34% pay increase and work rules that will improve their quality of life.”
“I want to congratulate the elected leadership of Omni and their crewmembers on this historic first tentative agreement,” said Airline Division Director David Bourne. “Their willingness to stay focused on the goal and support their leadership is reflected in this agreement. To achieve what was accomplished in this agreement; in these economic times is a credit also to the tenacity of the negotiators and International Representatives who worked with them,” he concluded.
A series of road shows to brief the members on the agreement will begin next week in Las Vegas, followed by Atlanta, Dallas-Ft. Worth and concluding in Shannon, Ireland in September. Other cities in the U.S. are under consideration and will be announced later.
Teamsters Files Suit Against RAH Holdings, FAPA over Concession Agreement
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), the certified union representative of the pilots of Republic Airlines and Frontier Airlines, has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver against Frontier Airlines Inc., its parent company, Republic Airways Holdings Inc. and a shell company set up by the rejected former union of Frontier.
The lawsuit alleges that Frontier, Republic Airways Holdings and the former union of Frontier pilots, the Frontier Airline Pilots Association, which recently lost a union representation election to the IBT, conspired to interfere in the representation election held in June by the National Mediation Board (NMB) among the pilots of the airlines controlled by Republic Airways. The IBT alleges that Frontier and Republic colluded with FAPA during the balloting period to interfere in the election in exchange for FAPA agreeing to concessions for Frontier pilots.
“The last-minute concession deal cut by Frontier, Republic Airways and FAPA gave concessions in exchange for Frontier agreeing to help FAPA perpetuate itself at Frontier no matter what the outcome of the votes of the pilots,” said IBT Airline Division Director Capt. David Bourne. “On the eve of the ballot count, FAPA gave pay cuts and other concessions to management in a desperate effort to avoid a vote of the pilots and short circuit the NMB election—that is just the sort of illegal behavior that Congress passed the Railway Labor Act to prevent.”
The lawsuit asks that the court nullify the FAPA concession agreement. It also asks that the court issue an injunction ordering Frontier and Republic to deal only with the IBT, who the NMB declared to have won overwhelmingly an election among the pilots of Republic, Frontier, Lynx Aviation and Midwest Airlines in June.
CAPA Calls For Release of New Flight Time/Duty Time Rules for Flight crews
The Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations (CAPA) representing over 28,000 commercial passenger and cargo pilots, is calling on the Federal Aviation Administration to release the New Flight /Duty Time regulations addressing airline pilot fatigue as required by the Airline Safety and Federal Aviation Extension Act of 2010.
Congress, in H.R. 5900, called for new, scientifically-based limitations on the hours of flight and duty time for pilots in order to address fatigue. Furthermore, Congress mandated those rules be released no later than August 1, 2011. That deadline has passed while the rule is being analyzed at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
“The concern is that the scientifically based set of flight time/duty time regulations addressing pilot fatigue is now at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and faces a possible rewrite due to overstated airline management cost concerns and not scientific facts regarding human fatigue,” comments Captain Carl Kuwitzky, President of CAPA.
CAPA and the FAA each agree in providing comprehensive solutions to regulatory reforms, and have long advocated “One Level of Safety” for all commercial flight operations: both passenger and all-cargo. Tremendous steps forward were made in the proposed rules such as “One Level Safety” and strongly defined pilot rest requirements. For more than 25 years the National Transportation Safety Board has called for meaningful reform of these regulations to no avail, but now they are within reach.
It is vitally important to the safety of our nation’s aviation transportation system that these new rules be implemented without further delay.
Airline Industry News
Airline
With fuel prices declining, US Airways and other airlines could benefit from the current economy…AMR Corp.'s plans to spin off American Eagle do not include the regional airline's debt or aircraft…Whether or not the merged UAL/CAL airline will retain "Rhapsody in Blue" as its theme song is still up in the air.
Regulatory and Governmental
Senate Democrats have sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner urging House Republicans to engage in "serious negotiations" on a funding bill for the Federal Aviation Administration. The stalemate between lawmakers resulted in the recent partial shutdown of the FAA. "Action on a final FAA bill is long overdue, and Congress should not delay any longer to resolve the differences between the Senate and House bills," says the letter.
Industry
"We certainly correspond and interact with those folks" at Airbus, but Southwest is "talking exclusively with Boeing, and that's only fair because that's what we want to make work"…Flight testing of the Boeing 787 likely will be finished this weekend. If so, Boeing's launch customers could receive their first new planes next month. The 747-8 has already completed its testing…The IAM won the election this week to determine who will represent the ramp workers of the combined UAL / CAL airline…