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Direct Action in the Airline Industry
the interesting part of the article is the discussion of the strike actions of the flight attendant
[ANALYSIS
Airlines in crisis mode
Holiday snafus representative of industry's continuing problems
David Armstrong, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Air travel over the holiday weekend was thrown into an epic snarl that's been blamed on everything from crashing computers to employee sick calls to lousy winter weather.
But one of the underlying causes, and something that threatens continuing problems for travelers in the new year, is the gloomy economic climate in the U.S. airline industry and the tense management-labor relations that those financial woes have spawned.
Starting Christmas Eve, tens of thousands of travelers were stranded or separated from their luggage when US Airways flight attendants and baggage handlers in Philadelphia called in sick at what the airline said was three times the normal rate.
Thousands more travelers were left stewing in dozens of airports when an unrelated computer meltdown at Comair, a feeder carrier for Delta Air Lines, prompted cancellation of all of Comair's weekend flights. The Department of Transportation promptly vowed to find out what went wrong.
Similar to a highly publicized incident in 1999, when Northwest Airlines passengers were held in a plane for nine hours without adequate food or water during a blizzard in Detroit, the holiday snafu has crystallized the public's anger and focused Washington's attention on earlier airline promises to improve service.
Even as the latest investigation is gearing up, some airline workers, infuriated by employer demands for huge givebacks, are threatening to replay the Philadelphia story again and again. The Association of Flight Attendants has even come up with a catchy and somewhat ominous acronym for its protest strategy -- CHAOS, which stands for Create Havoc Around Our System.
U.S. carriers have been flying turbulent skies since the nation's economy began to tank in 2000 and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, weakened demand for air travel.
Since then, three major carriers -- United Airlines, US Airways and Hawaiian Airlines -- have gone into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Two others -- American Airlines and Delta -- have come very close to filing. Low-cost carrier ATA Airlines also went bankrupt.
All told, the nation's airlines have lost $21 billion since 2001. They have laid off 25 percent of their employees in a desperate attempt to cut costs to reverse the four-year downward spiral.
The airlines have demanded deep wage cuts, reduced benefits and tighter work rules. Workers at United, the dominant airline at San Francisco International Airport with 11,000 employees in Northern California, have granted concessions of $2.5 billion a year for several years.
Most recently, United and US Airways said they want the federal government to bear the costs for expensive, fixed-benefit pensions and asked Bankruptcy Court judges to allow them to abrogate union contracts.
The result is a disgruntled, fearful and demoralized workforce. The US Airways sick-in, if that's what it was (unions have denied authorizing any work action), should be seen in this light.
Department of Transportation Inspector General Kenneth Mead promises to undertake the most through review of the airlines since the 1999 debacle in Detroit, but it's uncertain what the Feds might do about his findings and recommendations, which will not be binding on airlines.
In the meantime, the flight plan for the nation's airlines looks bumpy, and economics are again to blame.
By union reckonings, some new flight attendants at U.S. carriers earn starting pay as low as $12,000 a year. Even experienced flight attendants have steadily shrinking incomes. The downward trend has angered unions, notably the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents 46,000 workers, including the flight attendants at US Airways and United.
The union, asserting that worker concessions have gone far enough, has developed its CHAOS strategy by calling a rolling strike by flight attendants.
According to the union's Web site, CHAOS "is a strike action that may take many forms. It may call for a mass walkout for a day or a week at a time, with no advance notice to the company or the passengers. We may strike the entire system for 15 minutes or strike all of the odd-numbered gates in one city for a day and in another city for the next day. We may ask flight attendants to walk off individual targeted flights at random and with no warning.''
US Airways flight attendants have already voted to authorize a strike if their airline abrogates its union contracts in Chapter 11. The results of a strike authorization vote by United's flight attendants will be announced Thursday.
E-mail David Armstrong at davidarmstrong [at] sfchronicle.com.
Airlines in crisis mode
Holiday snafus representative of industry's continuing problems
David Armstrong, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Air travel over the holiday weekend was thrown into an epic snarl that's been blamed on everything from crashing computers to employee sick calls to lousy winter weather.
But one of the underlying causes, and something that threatens continuing problems for travelers in the new year, is the gloomy economic climate in the U.S. airline industry and the tense management-labor relations that those financial woes have spawned.
Starting Christmas Eve, tens of thousands of travelers were stranded or separated from their luggage when US Airways flight attendants and baggage handlers in Philadelphia called in sick at what the airline said was three times the normal rate.
Thousands more travelers were left stewing in dozens of airports when an unrelated computer meltdown at Comair, a feeder carrier for Delta Air Lines, prompted cancellation of all of Comair's weekend flights. The Department of Transportation promptly vowed to find out what went wrong.
Similar to a highly publicized incident in 1999, when Northwest Airlines passengers were held in a plane for nine hours without adequate food or water during a blizzard in Detroit, the holiday snafu has crystallized the public's anger and focused Washington's attention on earlier airline promises to improve service.
Even as the latest investigation is gearing up, some airline workers, infuriated by employer demands for huge givebacks, are threatening to replay the Philadelphia story again and again. The Association of Flight Attendants has even come up with a catchy and somewhat ominous acronym for its protest strategy -- CHAOS, which stands for Create Havoc Around Our System.
U.S. carriers have been flying turbulent skies since the nation's economy began to tank in 2000 and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, weakened demand for air travel.
Since then, three major carriers -- United Airlines, US Airways and Hawaiian Airlines -- have gone into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Two others -- American Airlines and Delta -- have come very close to filing. Low-cost carrier ATA Airlines also went bankrupt.
All told, the nation's airlines have lost $21 billion since 2001. They have laid off 25 percent of their employees in a desperate attempt to cut costs to reverse the four-year downward spiral.
The airlines have demanded deep wage cuts, reduced benefits and tighter work rules. Workers at United, the dominant airline at San Francisco International Airport with 11,000 employees in Northern California, have granted concessions of $2.5 billion a year for several years.
Most recently, United and US Airways said they want the federal government to bear the costs for expensive, fixed-benefit pensions and asked Bankruptcy Court judges to allow them to abrogate union contracts.
The result is a disgruntled, fearful and demoralized workforce. The US Airways sick-in, if that's what it was (unions have denied authorizing any work action), should be seen in this light.
Department of Transportation Inspector General Kenneth Mead promises to undertake the most through review of the airlines since the 1999 debacle in Detroit, but it's uncertain what the Feds might do about his findings and recommendations, which will not be binding on airlines.
In the meantime, the flight plan for the nation's airlines looks bumpy, and economics are again to blame.
By union reckonings, some new flight attendants at U.S. carriers earn starting pay as low as $12,000 a year. Even experienced flight attendants have steadily shrinking incomes. The downward trend has angered unions, notably the Association of Flight Attendants, which represents 46,000 workers, including the flight attendants at US Airways and United.
The union, asserting that worker concessions have gone far enough, has developed its CHAOS strategy by calling a rolling strike by flight attendants.
According to the union's Web site, CHAOS "is a strike action that may take many forms. It may call for a mass walkout for a day or a week at a time, with no advance notice to the company or the passengers. We may strike the entire system for 15 minutes or strike all of the odd-numbered gates in one city for a day and in another city for the next day. We may ask flight attendants to walk off individual targeted flights at random and with no warning.''
US Airways flight attendants have already voted to authorize a strike if their airline abrogates its union contracts in Chapter 11. The results of a strike authorization vote by United's flight attendants will be announced Thursday.
E-mail David Armstrong at davidarmstrong [at] sfchronicle.com.
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Updated: 12/29/2004 08:23:23 AM
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - US Airways is appealing to some employees to work at the Philadelphia airport over the New Year's weekend for free.
The idea is to avoid a repeat of the Christmas fiasco that left the airline with too few workers to fly its planes and process passenger baggage.
A memo to employees says it's "a volunteer program" and employees who are scheduled off on those days will not be paid for coming in to work.
A US Airways spokesman says, "We're not forcing them to come in; we're asking them to come in willfully."
Employees who work on days when they're scheduled will be paid.
The Christmas debacle left an estimated 10,000 undelivered bags at the airport and stranded travelers all along the east coast.
Separately, the airline is warning employees that it will review the attendance records of those who called in sick over the Christmas holiday and will discipline workers who abused the sick time system.