American Airlines is currently battling with its mechanics and it’s all going very wrong.
You see, American Airlines still doesn’t have a post-merger contract combining US Airways and American’s mechanics. The main argument is based on American’s plans, which enable mechanics to keep their jobs, pay and work locations but as this workforce is aging, American wants to outsource some of their work to external agencies. The union doesn’t want to give up future jobs to outsourcing, hence the battle.
The Transportation Workers Union has posted this video from Tuesday’s LaGuardia airport employee Q & A session with American’s President Robert Isom:
The Union president says that the situation may “erupt[..] into the bloodiest ugliest battle that the United States”. He says they may “engage in absolutely vicious strike action against American Airlines the likes of which you’ve never seen.”
Gary from View From The Wing ponders the whys and wherefores here and we are already seeing evidence of a “slowdown” in engineering work by the Unions, which is shown by an increasing number of AA flight cancellations.
The worst possible outcome for passengers is a massive strike and this is looking more and more likely. Passenger sympathy will drain away very quickly if they have their flights delayed and canceled over the summer.
While I try to be optimistic about booking with American Airlines, there are two very serious reasons why passengers will be hesitant about booking onto American this summer:
- They are fearful of “absolutely vicious strike action” messing with their plans
- They are fearful of one particular American Airlines plane rolling up to their boarding gate
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