Leaders of American Airlines' pilots' union are to meet on Tuesday to consider contract talks aimed at boosting productivity, but avoiding any wage or benefit cuts, a union spokesman said.
The pilots' board meeting comes as some members are arguing against granting any kind of concessions until the future direction of fuel prices and revenues becomes clearer. It will be the latest test for AMR's strategy of courting its workers and avoiding some rivals' strong-arm approach.
The leaders of the 13,000-member union will be considering productivity-boosting proposals resulting from a top-to-bottom review of the airline's operations by members of management, unions and some outside consultants.
Pilots' union leaders in the past have pointed to low-cost rival Southwest Airlines' success in keeping one of the industry's lowest cost structures while paying its pilots industry-leading wages.
"We've identified some areas in which all work groups have some inefficiencies and the question is whether or not our board of directors wants to authorize our committee to speak with the company about how we can be efficient or more efficient," said Denis Breslin, an American pilot and spokesman for the union.
He said any such negotiations would not include wage and salary cuts or additional pilot furloughs and could also include possible incentives tied to a possible turnaround in the airline's results.
But support for discussing productivity improvements is far from unanimous. A dissident group called "Pilots Defending the Profession" (PDP) opposes the move given recent signs of a turnaround in the industry as fuel prices ease and troubled airlines cut available seats, boosting pricing power.
Jason Goldberg, a pilot and PDP member, said there was a "schism" in the union's leadership, with several members agreeing with the PDP that "making a decision right now to provide the company with more productivity is premature."
The dissidents are wary of the friendly relations the Allied Pilots' Association's leaders have cultivated with American Airlines Chief Executive Gerard Arpey and the rest of the airline's management.
Arpey has succeeded in winning over the leadership of all of American's main unions by forming "leadership teams" comprising rank and file as well as management, paying performance bonuses and fully meeting its pension obligations, among other moves.
"Gerard Arpey's a very engaging guy, but we view the quantitative issues as the only issues," Goldberg said. "It's all about the pay and the benefits."
