American Airlines pilots vote to authorize strike

pilots in american airlines they voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike as they try to come up with a new contract before the summer travel season.

However, the likelihood of a work stoppage remains low, because workers in the airline industry face several obstacles before they can legally retire from work.

Capt. Ed Sicher, president of the Allied Pilots Association, said the pilots were determined to achieve schedule changes that would “improve the reliability and operational efficiency of the airline.”

“We will strike if necessary to secure the industry-leading contract that our pilots have earned and deserve, a contract that will position American Airlines for success,” Sicher said.

The union announced the results of the vote on Monday. He said 99% of the pilots had voted to authorize the strike, with 96% of American’s 15,000 pilots participating in the vote throughout April. The pilots planned to hold information pickets at 10 major airports on Monday.

American and the union have been trying to negotiate a contract since January 2019. The airline said in a statement that it was confident the deal could be “finalized quickly.”

“The finish line is in sight,” an airline spokesperson said in an email. “We understand that a strike authorization vote is one of the important ways pilots express their desire to reach an agreement and we respect the message of the vote results.”

Like railway workers, airline employees are subject to a different set of collective bargaining rules, and it is more difficult for them to leave work than for most other private sector workers. The US pilots would first have to go through the mediation of a government board and receive legal permission to strike.

The two sides are still in what are known as “direct negotiations” and have not yet requested mediation, which would be a preliminary step before a strike.

Dan Koller, a spokesman for the union, told HuffPost that the strike authorization was “not about money.” Instead, it was mostly about the schedule, which he called “chaotic and unpredictable” for the workers.

“Pilots want a better quality of work life,” Koller said in an email. “They want to know that if they are scheduled for a four-day trip, they will return home to their families after four days. They want to know that if they make an offer for a layover in, say, New Orleans and make plans to meet friends there, the airline won’t send them to Buffalo in a heartbeat.”

Koller said negotiations have dragged on for so long only in part because of the pandemic, which caused a massive slowdown in air travel before a sharp rebound. “American Airlines management was slow before COVID and has continued to do so as the industry has recovered,” Koller said.

American Airlines said it was “working quickly” to finalize the contract. “We remain focused on completing the handful of issues necessary to reach an agreement that our pilots deserve,” the spokesperson said.

Airlines have struggled to retain pilots and other crew members amid low unemployment and a strong travel economy, giving workers more leverage in negotiations. The pilots of the American competitor Delta recently signed a new contract with the airline that includes Salary increases of 34% over the course of four years.

Industry contracts typically model one another, and the Delta deal could set the stage for deals not only at American but also at United and Southwest.