Pilot Attrition Critical at Largest Amazon Carrier

For nearly three-and-a-half-years, the pilots of Wilmington, Ohio-based Air Transport International (ATI), as represented by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), have been mired in unproductive negotiations with the air-carrier’s management.

In March 2023—compelled by a protracted stalemate occasioned by management’s obstinance vis-à-vis big-ticket issues the likes of compensation and retirement packages—both parties filed for mediation with the U.S. National Mediation Board (NMB).

The last scheduled NMB session of 2023 will be held in Baltimore, Maryland and span 24 through 26 October.

ATI ALPA Master Executive Council (MEC) chair Captain Mike Sterling stated: “Just over a month ago, ATI pilot leaders sent a strong message to management that we are ready and willing to take a strike vote should it be a necessary step in achieving the contract we deserve. It’s now on company negotiators to show up and deliver us a contract that meets the needs of our pilots, or we will deliver them a strike-authorization vote.”

ATI and parent company Air Transport Services Group (ATSG) management face a critical decision: come to the table ready to make a deal that recognizes the sacrifices and contributions made by the pilot group for purpose of earning the company the distinction of being the most reliable and largest Amazon air carrier in the world, or continue to deny the value of ATI pilots and watch as the airline bleeds pilots to other carriers that respect and value their pilots, continues to be unable to fill captain vacancies, and fails to support the customers.

Captain Sterling added: “After negotiating for more than three-years, our pilots are fed up. The sluggish mentality of ATSG leadership is driving pilots away from what was once a destination airline. Delivering a contract with much-needed improvements in pay, retirement, and work rules will allow ATI to attract and retain experienced pilots and may polish ATI’s currently tarnished reputation within the industry.”

The authorizing of a strike is the first in a long and complex succession of prerequisites that must be met prior to ATI pilots walking off the job. By making such an authorization in the weeks prior to the onset of the frantic and profitable winter holiday shopping/delivery season, ATI pilots and ALPA jointly exert considerable pressure on ATSG management to assume a more cooperative tenor at the negotiation table.

A strike authorization vote doesn’t guarantee a labor stoppage. Rather, it demonstrates the collective resolve of ATI pilots to strike at the union’s directive to do so. The threat of a strike—and the compounding tragedies of lost revenue, public acrimony, and customer desertion occasioned thereby—is intended to speed up contract talks stretched almost beyond belief into their third year.

The Railway Labor Act, to which the airline industry is beholden, does not allow pilots and other workers deemed essential to national transportation infrastructure to walk off their jobs until federal regulators—dullards called in at the 11th hour to exacerbate animosities—confirm that the two opposing sides of a labor dispute have arrived at an impasse likely to be months or even years in the resolution. Should either side decline arbitration, both parties enter a thirty-day cooling off period, after which the parties may engage in self-help—which is to say the union may call a strike or the management may undertake a workplace lockout.

Since January 2022, more than 56-percent of the ATI pilot cadre has left the airline. Month after month, the attrition continues unabated as pilots accept superior employment offers from competing air-carriers.

Founded in 1931 and representing upwards of 73,000 pilots in the employs of forty U.S. and Canadian airlines, the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) is the world’s largest and most influential pilot union.

FMI: www.alpa.org