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US Airways to meet with two unions
Pilots, attendants involved in gathering next week
Friday, January 30, 2004
By Dan Fitzpatrick, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In what could be a sign of warming relations between US Airways and its unions, top executives with the Arlington, Va.-based airline are planning to attend a meeting next week in Arlington with leaders of the Air Line Pilots Association and a mid-February gathering of the Association of Flight Attendants in Pittsburgh.
The decision to reach out to both labor groups comes as the struggling carrier, which employs about 8,000 people in the Pittsburgh area, contemplates ways to cut costs further and prepare itself for increasing competition from low-fare carriers such as Southwest Airlines.
The company met with the pilots two days this week in an informal, nonbargaining session, and talked to them about the challenges US Airways faces this year as it continues to lose money and tries to meet the milestones imposed by $900 million in government backed loans.
The pilots' negotiating committee will take what was said back to the union's 12-member governing body, which is set to meet Monday and Tuesday.
US Airways executives will take part in those meetings.
Then, in mid-February, company officers plan to attend a gathering of the flight attendants' leadership group, in Pittsburgh.
An airline spokesman could not confirm which executives would attend the meeting, but Teddy Xidas, president of the flight attendants' Pittsburgh Local 40, said Chief Executive Officer David Siegel, Senior Vice President Bruce Ashby and Senior Vice President Jerry Glass are expected to attend.
The topic, she said, will be the company's revised 2004 business plan -- a plan that the flight attendants and the pilots have been asking to see. Most airline observers and labor leaders expect it to include requests for work rule changes and productivity improvements -- measures that would have to be contractually negotiated. US Airways, Xidas said, contacted the flight attendants last week, and, "The company proposed to reveal [its] business plan to our leaders. The idea of having it at the [mid-February] meeting was ours."
"We will hear the business plan," Xidas said. "We never opposed that. We were never opposed to hearing the business plan."
But, "I can't tell you we will participate in it. "
Pilots, attendants involved in gathering next week
Friday, January 30, 2004
By Dan Fitzpatrick, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In what could be a sign of warming relations between US Airways and its unions, top executives with the Arlington, Va.-based airline are planning to attend a meeting next week in Arlington with leaders of the Air Line Pilots Association and a mid-February gathering of the Association of Flight Attendants in Pittsburgh.
The decision to reach out to both labor groups comes as the struggling carrier, which employs about 8,000 people in the Pittsburgh area, contemplates ways to cut costs further and prepare itself for increasing competition from low-fare carriers such as Southwest Airlines.
The company met with the pilots two days this week in an informal, nonbargaining session, and talked to them about the challenges US Airways faces this year as it continues to lose money and tries to meet the milestones imposed by $900 million in government backed loans.
The pilots' negotiating committee will take what was said back to the union's 12-member governing body, which is set to meet Monday and Tuesday.
US Airways executives will take part in those meetings.
Then, in mid-February, company officers plan to attend a gathering of the flight attendants' leadership group, in Pittsburgh.
An airline spokesman could not confirm which executives would attend the meeting, but Teddy Xidas, president of the flight attendants' Pittsburgh Local 40, said Chief Executive Officer David Siegel, Senior Vice President Bruce Ashby and Senior Vice President Jerry Glass are expected to attend.
The topic, she said, will be the company's revised 2004 business plan -- a plan that the flight attendants and the pilots have been asking to see. Most airline observers and labor leaders expect it to include requests for work rule changes and productivity improvements -- measures that would have to be contractually negotiated. US Airways, Xidas said, contacted the flight attendants last week, and, "The company proposed to reveal [its] business plan to our leaders. The idea of having it at the [mid-February] meeting was ours."
"We will hear the business plan," Xidas said. "We never opposed that. We were never opposed to hearing the business plan."
But, "I can't tell you we will participate in it. "
