Airline Division News Items

Airline Division Meets in Las Vegas

The Division had two successful meetings at the annual Teamsters Unity Conference at Bally’s Hotel in Las Vegas.  On Friday May 1 the Advisory Board of Directors met, chaired by George Miranda, Secretary-Treasurer of Local 210, and on Saturday May 2 the Airline Division had its general meeting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

The highlight of the Advisory Board of Directors meeting was a decision to go forward with a comprehensive safety program.  Also, among other presentations, the Organizing Division made a detailed report on its recent success at organizing mechanics at Horizon and its ongoing organizing efforts and plans for the future.  The Airline Division hopes to have 60 thousand members by mid-summer.

The general meeting was a huge success with the largest attendance in recent memory.  The meeting was jam packed with interesting presentations and ran the full four hours.  David Bourne, the Director of the Airline Division, kicked off the meeting with opening remarks and an overview of what the Division has been up to.

A very thorough power point presentation was made by the Organizing Division covering recent success, ongoing campaigns, and future plans.  Jeff Farmer, Organizing Division Director, and Kim Keller led the presentation, with other organizers adding short presentations on efforts they are involved in.

Chris Moore, gave a presentation covering the Teamster Aircraft Mechanic Coalition, a mechanics group composed of all the airlines with Teamster mechanics dedicated to improving the status of mechanics through efforts such as support of the Teamsters fight against foreign outsourcing of maintenance work.  The TAMC will put out its first newsletter shortly.  Chris is the chairman of the group.

Ed Gleason from the Legal Division covered the current legal work for the Airline Division, including the development of legislative language for several efforts on Capital Hill, grievance work, and support of negotiations of collective bargaining agreements among other support the Legal Divison gives the Airline Division.  Nick Manicone the second lawyer assigned to Airline Division support also added to the legal presentation.

A presentation on some of the Teamster legislative work involving maintenance outsourcing, bankruptcy reform, and express carrier legislative change was made by Jack Albertine, a lobbyist from the Albertine Enterprises Group. 

International Representatives Paul Alves, Clacy Griswold, Barry Schimmel and Dan Smith each gave short presentations covering their areas of assigned work.  George Miranda gave a few remarks about the Advisory Board of Directors.

A final presentation about the importance of safety was made by Russ Leighton of Local 1224.  Russ is an ex-accident investigator from the NTSB and is currently the Head of Safety for Local 1224.  Russ will head up the new Safety Committee authorized by the Advisory Board of Governors.  The first meeting of the Safety Committee will take place at Local 781 offices in Chicago on May 14, 2009.

Kalitta Air Crew Receive Plaques from General President Hoffa

Three members of the crew that crash landed a B747 in a field near Bogota, Columbia on July 7, 2008 were honored with a plaque from President Hoffa at the Unity Conference.  Captains Bryant Beebe, Ivan Dankha and Richard Dunlap managed to get a B747 fully loaded with 73 tons of flowers headed fro Miami on the ground after losing power in three engines.  All eight crewmembers on board survived.   This was the only B747 crash off airport in history to have survivors.   David Bourne will take plaques to two other crew members who are still recovering from the accident and could not attend the Unity Conference.

 Week in Review News Items

Labor Developments

President Obama has moved quickly to demonstrate his solidarity with the labor movement, making a series of policy and personnel moves dramatically reshaping the landscape to give unions a better foothold. US Airways' pilots union, on trial in Phoenix for allegedly ignoring the interests of some its members in a dispute over merger seniority, launched its defense with some serious star power on Friday. The US Airline Pilots Association called Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III, famed captain of the US Airways flight that successfully ditched in the Hudson River in January, as its first witness in the jury trial. He was on the stand for less than a half-hour and immediately left the courtroom, but he packed a punch with his strong criticism of a seniority list issued by an arbitrator two years ago. And Southwest Airlines Co. said Tuesday it reached a tentative agreement to give pay raises to about 5,300 customer-service employees. Southwest didn't say how big the pay raises would be. It said the four-year deal also includes benefit increases in exchange for giving the company more scheduling flexibility and productivity improvements.

Airline Financial Results

Airlines around the world suffered a total $1bn loss in the first quarter of 2009, the International Air Transport Association said.  It said that U.S. passenger airlines were reporting improved performances which reflected their capacity cuts. But most airlines outside the US were posting larger Q1 losses. British Airways has reported a sharp decline in premium traffic over April as demand from the corporate travel market continues to drop. The airline's 17.7% decrease in demand for business and first class seats deepens the 13% decline seen in March. U.S. airlines have been releasing April traffic data that indicate a bottoming-out in demand erosion, with improved load factors, or the percentage of available seats filled with passengers. As capacity matches demand, it could put a halt to falling ticket prices. Once the biggest airline in the world, United is shrinking dramatically. In size it now ranks fourth, behind Delta, American and AirFrance/KLM. Between 2000 and 2008, its fleet shrank by a third, its workforce shrank by half and its passenger count shrank by 38%.

Airline Industry Liberalization

UK Secretary of State for Transport Geoff Hoon yesterday urged President Barack Obama's administration to commit to completing a Stage 2 open skies agreement by June 2010 "with the headline objective of liberalizing all foreign ownership in airlines to give European and American carriers a bigger home market and the ability to operate like any other competitive international company." FedEx Corp. President and CEO Fred Smith says U.S. and European officials should press forward with aviation liberalization and resist protectionism driven by the global recession. The U.S. will face increased pressure to relax restrictions on foreign ownership of its airlines after a recently signed aviation treaty between Canada and the European Union, a top U.S. airline executive said Thursday. Glenn Tilton, the chairman and chief executive of United Airlines parent UAL Corp., urged U.S. lawmakers to reject proposed legislation currently before Congress that could limit cooperation between U.S. and foreign carriers. 

Airplane Manufacturers’ Woes

Boeing took cancellations for 25 787s during the week ended May 5, according to its Orders and Deliveries website, but it did not say whether the cancellations came from a single or multiple customers. Airbus cut its 2009 delivery target for the A380 superjumbo on Wednesday, the latest in a series of downgrades, this time blaming the economic crisis and deferral requests from airline customers. 

Did Sullenberger Land In The Hudson? Or Did The Plane Land Itself?

Just how important was Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s piloting skill to pulling off the fatality free spashdown of US Airways Flight 1549 Jan. 15? Vanity Fair writer William Langewiesche touches on that topic in his 11,000-word dissection of the Hudson River landing in the latest issue of the magazine. The gargantuan piece ranges broadly over the elements that combined to create that remarkable situation back in January, from the history of Canada geese in New York City to Sully’s stint in the Air Force, much of it spent traversing the Nevada skies in F-4 Phantoms.