Fri, Nov 14, 2008
Will Meet Next Week With Congressional Leaders
Continental Airlines pilots will
send their union leaders to Washington DC early next week, to meet
with Congressional leaders. The union is protesting the Department
of Transportation's
planned slot auctions at New York/New Jersey
airports.
"The auctions will do nothing to help airline passengers or ease
congestion at these airports. Moving slots from one airline to
another is no better than aimlessly shuffling deck chairs on the
Titanic. These auctions needlessly threaten our pilots' jobs. We're
not going to be silent and watch our airline's slots and our jobs
be auctioned off to the highest bidder," says Capt. Jay Pierce,
chairman of the Continental chapter of the Air Line Pilots
Association.
"We are urging Congress to stop the DOT, particularly when the
Congress, case law, administration practice and legislative history
all support the viewpoint that the DOT does not have the legal
authority to proceed."
Slightly less than half of Continental's approximately 5000
pilots are based in Newark. ALPA says they will be significantly
impacted if Continental Airline's slots at Newark Liberty Airport
are auctioned to other airlines.
"We could see a loss of up to ten percent of our flying from
Newark," says Capt. Al Brandano, leader of the local union council
in Newark. "Our pilots are demanding to know why jobs are being
taken away, particularly when there's no benefit to the flying
public, no benefit to the communities where these airports are
located, no benefit to our airlines and certainly no benefit to
airline employees."
In addition to meeting with members of Congress, union leaders
recently implemented a campaign asking Continental pilots to write,
call and e-mail their representatives. Similar action was
undertaken by other employee groups at Continental Airlines. The
union has also coordinated with Continental management in attempts
to fight the slot auctions.
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