Allied Pilot Association (APA) said that it will begin renegotiating its Tentative Agreement (TA) with American Airlines.
The news comes after United Airlines and its pilots, represented by the United Master Executive Council (MEC) of the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), agreed to an Agreement In Principle (AIP) on July 15, 2023.
According to a statement by Ed Sicher, the president of APA, the new United Airlines pilot agreement made APA’s and American Airlines’ TA “woefully deficient by comparison and in need of significant improvements”. Sicher added that the “bargaining landscape has changed, and management must respond accordingly”.
Previous reports published by Reuters cited the union’s wishes to renegotiate its TA with American Airlines.
APA’s chief executive has already talked to American Airlines CEO Robert Isom and executive vice president and chief strategy officer (CSO) Steve Johnson to measure whether the airline shares the union’s “commitment to doing what’s required to produce a TA that truly matches our industry competitors”.
Sicher noted that “Mr. Isom and Mr. Johnson both acknowledged that significant improvements must be made, with Mr. Isom reiterating his assertion that management” will take care of American Airlines pilots.
“Is management serious about doing what’s required? Do they understand the need for a genuinely competitive pilot contract? Will they attempt to lowball us again with yet another subpar offer? Time will tell, and it won’t take long,” he continued.
APA’s 15,000 pilots were supposed to vote on the new TA between July 24 and August 7, 2023. However, on July 16, 2023, the union said that with the new United Airlines AIP, “United CEO Scott Kirby has found ways to address pay and quality-of-life items for his pilots that American CEO Robert Isom and his team have repeatedly told us were simply impossible to do here”.
“While it is unclear at this point how management views the impact of the United deal on our TA, there should be no question that your Board of Directors believes the bargaining landscape has changed and management must address those changes in substantive and meaningful ways,” APA concluded at the time.
Meanwhile, United Airlines pilots are set to vote on their new agreement once the union and the airline finish drafting the contract language, ‘converting’ the AIP into a TA.