Court sides with pilots in AA contract dispute, for now!

American Airlines (AA) was unexpectedly rebuked Wednesday by a US bankruptcy judge, who declined to reject AA’s labor contract with its pilots. The airline, however, expressed confidence that changes can be made to its request to the court that will enable the pilots’ contract to be rejected and new labor rules imposed.

AA’s 10,000 pilots, represented by the Allied Pilots Assn. (APA), last week voted down a tentative agreement that had been reached with AA management on a new collective bargaining agreement, setting the stage for the court to rule on a labor contract containing work rules AA has said are untenable going forward.

Both AA and APA expected the court to reject the contract, but US bankruptcy judge Sean Lane ruled that AA had not made the case, particularly in regard to having the ability to furlough pilots and re-write scope clauses to have greater flexibility in regional airline contracts.

He did concede that changes to the pilots’ contract are necessary and said AA can resubmit a new, revised request to throw out the contract. The judge “ultimately concluded that only two narrowly defined elements of the company’s proposal require modification,” AA spokesperson Bruce Hicks said in an emailed statement. “We will adjust those elements … Even regarding the two items on which the court found that American had exceeded what was necessary, Judge Lane agreed that the status quo was untenable.

He concluded that American needs a significant increase in codesharing and latitude to furlough, but he believed that our proposals on both need to be modified.”

New APA president Keith Wilson said in a message to AA pilots that “management has overreached in their desire to extract more concessions than are warranted to support their reorganization plan in this bankruptcy … Clearly management went well beyond what is the industry standard for bankruptcy contracts, and the judge recognized this in his decision.”

(Aaron Karp - ATWOnline News)