CAL Mechanic and Related Members Reach T/A with CAL Management
Almost two hard years of work by the IBT Negotiating Committee for CAL Mechanics and Related crafts has resulted in a Tentative Agreement, announced to the membership today by the Negotiating Committee.
Membership meetings are currently being scheduled around the system to brief the members on the T/A. Additionally; the specifics of the agreement are being mailed to each member along with information on the procedures to vote, with the process beginning around September 17th followed by a ballot count in mid October.
“I want to offer my congratulations to the members of the Negotiating Committee for their incredible dedication to the members they serve,” said Airline Division Director David Bourne. “It was their commitment and hard work that made this T/A possible.”
Teamsters, USAPA Announce Strategic Alliance
This week, the Airline Division of the Teamsters announced the formation of a Strategic Alliance with the US Airline Pilots Association (USAPA). The alliance will strengthen efforts to win an industry standard contract, bankruptcy reform, Railway Labor Act reform, Flight and Duty Time reform and safety initiatives.
“We welcome a strategic alliance with USAPA and their 5,200 pilots,” said Teamsters Airline Division Director Capt. David Bourne. “US Airways pilots stood with our Amerijet pilots during their strike, and continue to be partners with us on numerous legislative issues, which will improve the working environment and safety of airline pilots. Our alliance with USAPA will give our safety and contract initiatives more power as we work on the important issues on Capitol Hill and elsewhere that affect airline pilots and all employees of our industry.”
USAPA is also a member of the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations (CAPA), an industry advocacy group with which the Airline Division maintains an alliance.
Commenting on the Strategic Alliance, President Mike Cleary said, “The Teamsters are true trade unionists, have considerable influence in Washington, DC and represent workers across the global supply chain (warehouses, ports, fuel supplies, etc). Such a strategic alliance will be useful moving forward to help USAPA and our brother and sisters at the IBT to achieve our common goals including obtaining an industry standard contract, bankruptcy reform, Railway Labor Act reform, Flight and Duty Time reform and safety initiatives.”
Airline Division Joins in Support of USAirways Pilots Picketing in Philadelphia
This Wednesday, more than 150 union pilots of USAirways conducted informational picketing at the Philadelphia International Airport and publicly displayed their growing displeasure with their managements stalling of contract negotiations.
IBT Airline Division Director Captain David Bourne walked the line with the pilots and addressed them after the picketing. He expressed the Teamsters' strong support for their cause, and assured the pilots that with the newly formed Strategic Alliance all 1.4 million IBT members stood with them. Association of Flight Attendants East MEC Chairman Mike Flores and several other AFA members also joined the picketers.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/20100909_Seeking_new_pact__U_S__Airways_pilots_picket_in_Philadelphia.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/triad/stories/2010/09/06/daily15.html
Atlas Air Worldwide Fails To Reach a Contract Agreement with Pilots, Flight Engineers
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Airline Division, announced that negotiations with Atlas Air Worldwide (AAWW), the holding company of Atlas Air, Inc. and Polar Air Cargo Worldwide, have ended without a collective bargaining agreement. The Teamsters and AAWW have been in negotiations to merge the existing Atlas Air, Inc. and Polar Air Cargo Worldwide contracts for nearly two years.
“Instead of reaching an agreement with its pilots, AAWW management has decided to let an arbitrator determine the core provisions in the pilots’ contract,” said Captain David Bourne, Teamsters Airline Division Director. “Consequently, an arbitrator will impose contract terms affecting the rules for airline acquisitions, mergers, asset disposition, marketing agreements, joint ventures, foreign operations, subcontracting, salary, health insurance, retirement, profit sharing and contract duration,” he said.
Approximately 800 Teamsters-represented pilots; members of Local 1224, are employed by Atlas Air, Inc. and Polar Air Cargo Worldwide. They operate the world’s largest fleet of modern Boeing 747 all-cargo aircraft serving customers in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. The express unit of German-based DHL has a 49 percent stake in Polar Air Cargo Worldwide.
“Pilot morale is at an all time low at Atlas and Polar,” Bourne said. “The company is one of the most profitable airlines in the world, in part, because of lucrative government contracts, but management is putting its past success at risk by refusing to enter into a fair contract with their hard-working pilots who are unified in their demands,” he said.
Under the terms of an agreement between the Teamsters and AAWW management, all unresolved contract sections must be resolved by final and binding arbitration with no judicial review. The arbitration hearing is scheduled to begin in October.
FAA To Release NPRM on Flight Time / Duty Time Regulations
Today, the FAA released a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM) for new Flight/Duty Regulations. A public comment period will now open for a period of 30 – 180 days. Once the public comment period is closed, the FAA will review the submitted commentary and could impose new regulations in as little as 30 days, or up to a year or longer. The possibility also exists that the FAA will choose to not act at all.
"For decades, evidence has existed that the current regulations on flight time and duty time for pilots is out of date and creates serious safety issues,” said Airline Division Director David Bourne.” We call upon the Administrator to recall his own roots as an airline pilot and the long standing concerns and proof that the current regulations compromise safety, and implement the changes needed to make our crewmembers and the American traveling public safer,” he concluded.
For more information and to read the NPRM, go to:
http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/rulemaking/recently_published/media/FAA_2010_22626.pdf.
In Light of UPS Cargo Crash, Airline Division Renews Call for Lifesaving Vision Devices
Renewing a call he made in a letter sent earlier this year, Airline Division Director David Bourne is calling for mandatory installation of a system that allows crewmembers to see and read critical flight instruments when they are obscured by smoke or fire in the cockpit.
In the letter dated June 6, 2010, sent to Congressman James Oberstar (D-MN), who is Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Director Bourne wrote, “Airliners are not certified for continuous blinding smoke but only a finite amount of smoke for a short three minutes. As a result, there have been numerous accidents in the past that resulted from continuous unstoppable smoke in the cockpit. Fixing this unaddressed safety issue has a collateral benefit of addressing a security issue as well.”
He went on to say, “Not commonly known is that damage inflicted by a small bomb may not cause an aircraft to crash but is known to generate enough smoke to blind pilots and prevent them from seeing their instruments and out the window in order to fly and land the airplane. If the airplane remains flyable; the blinding smoke then becomes a safety issue. An inability to see due to unstoppable smoke will result in the crash of a flyable aircraft due to blinding smoke.”
“While the accident investigation of UPS Flight 6 is just beginning, it is already known that the crew reported smoke in the cockpit,” he said. “This is not a minor issue. The inability to see the cockpit instruments because of smoke obscuration makes it fundamentally impossible to determine the aircraft status and goes to the heart of controllability and the ability to successfully land a crippled airliner.”
“This was the fourth event this year involving smoke in the cockpit of a commercial aircraft,” he went on to say. Other events occurred on three domestic passenger flights; Delta 531 on April 10th in Tampa, United 27 on May 17th at Dulles, United 229 in Charlestown, West Virginia. “All of these flights were in the air and made successful emergency landings,” Bourne said. “Despite their tremendous professionalism and skills, the UPS crew found themselves in a much more serious situation that may have contributed to the tragic loss of their lives.”
“As an airline pilot myself, I can unequivocally state that there is nothing more feared by pilots than smoke and fire in the airplane,” Bourne continued.” We must have better methods of not only fighting the fire and smoke, but also ways to be able to see our instruments to give us a chance to get the airplane safely on the ground without loss of life to passengers or the public on the ground.”
“FAA approved systems already exist to allow pilots to see in the cockpit when there is unstoppable, blinding smoke. They are commercially available and in terms of cost and installation, are minor expenditures compared to the potential loss of life and property,” said Bourne.
“In concluding his letter to Congressman Oberstar, Bourne pointed out, “The International Brotherhood of Teamsters Airline Division takes the position that since the Secretary of Transportation, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Federal Aviation Administration have equipped their aircraft with technology to permit their pilots to see in a cockpit filled with continuous unstoppable smoke, the public and airline crews deserve the same degree of safety.”
“The tragic loss of UPS Flight 6 brings this issue to the forefront yet again. It is time for the pilots of airliners who fly our skies to have this invaluable safety tool at their disposal immediately,” Bourne concluded.
Week in Review News Items
Labor Developments
United Airlines pilots’ counterparts at Continental are talking tough as the two carriers combine to form the world's largest airline. Continental's pilots union is dead set against any plans to outsource more flights to regional airlines. They have negotiated the industry's tightest limits on outsourcing and vow to fight any increase at the merged carrier…the wide gap between American and its pilots union narrowed when Dave Bates, 55, was elected president of the Allied Pilots Association. Bates, a 25-year American 777 captain, is part of a new breed of union leaders who realize that for pilots to win, airlines must win too.
Legislative, Safety & Regulatory
The United States has stepped up pressure to prevent Europe from charging foreign airlines for greenhouse gas emissions when they take off and land there. Yet even as authorities in the United States seek to build support against the European system, some major carriers in the United States have started taking steps to comply with the rules, which take effect in 2012…getting the government's approval for an airline merger is proving to be easier than winning its blessing for a swap of takeoff and landing slots at busy domestic airports…we had the chance to sit with American Airlines' new senior vice president of maintenance and engineering, Jim Ream, who ran ExpressJet Airlines and had spent time at Continental Airlines prior to returning to American.
Airline Industry Finances & Structure
Haneda airport will open up to international flights next month as Japan works to maintain Tokyo's status as an Asian travel hub. But it comes with a big catch for U.S. airlines who've been squeezed into the least convenient time slots…the U.S. aviation and aerospace industries are considering asking Congress for a slice of the $50 billion in infrastructure assistance proposed by President Barack Obama, a top trade group official said on Wednesday…and plans by Delta and affiliates of Virgin Blue Group to collaborate on flights between the U.S. and Australia suffered a setback on Wednesday, with the U.S. Transportation Department saying it expects to deny their request.
Miscellaneous
Holli Powell, a Phoenix medical- software consultant who flies every week, says she avoids getting into airport security lines that end at what she calls a humiliating full-body scanner. The concerns of travelers such as Powell may soon be eased. L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. and OSI Systems Inc.'s Rapiscan, makers of the scanners for U.S. airports, are delivering software upgrades that show a generic figure rather than an actual image of a passenger's body parts. The new display would mark sections of a person's body that need to be checked.
The backlash against airline fees of all shapes and sizes deepened Tuesday when three advocacy groups for travelers and travel agencies launched a petition drive asking airlines to be more forthcoming about what they'll ding fliers for at airports and in the air. The "Mad as Hell About Hidden Fees" website and petition drive stem from efforts by the American Society of Travel Agents, the Business Travel Coalition and the Consumer Travel Alliance. Their goal: get airlines to be more transparent on fees and allow travel booking companies access to fee schedules, making comparisons easier among airlines by third parties.