Source: Chicago Tribune
Author: Gregory Karp

Move attributed to rise in pilots calling in sick, filing maintenance reports, but union denies role

Cancellations of American Airlines flights have rocketed in recent days — it has scrapped nearly 250 flights so far this week, including 65 for Wednesday — as the airline spars with its pilots and plans to reduce the number of flights over the next few weeks.

Since Sunday, American has canceled 243 flights nationwide, triple the number of any other airline, according to FlightAware.com. Cancellations Tuesday included three flights at O'Hare International Airport, where only 65 percent of American's flights were on time, according to FlightStats.com.

By comparison, the other big airline at O'Hare, United Airlines, had an on-time rate of 79 percent on Tuesday at the same airport.

The increase in cancellations and the reduction in flights are due to a number of factors, including more pilots calling in sick and more maintenance reports being filed by pilots, American spokesman Bruce Hicks said.

The airline will reduce its schedule for the rest of September and through October by 1 to 2 percent, Hicks said. Of the airline's 1,700 flights per day, that amounts to a reduction of 17 to 34 flights.

"It's an attempt to preplan and better accommodate our passengers by canceling in advance and changing the schedule to reaccommodate people — to give them plenty of notice before they get to the airport and find a flight canceled," Hicks said, adding that the company is not aware of an organized job action against the airline by pilots. "We recognize these adjustments may affect our customers, and we apologize for any inconvenience."

The airline is following its standard procedures for accommodating passengers of canceled flights, which in some cases includes hotel stays, Hicks said.

AMR, parent of American Airlines, is in bankruptcy protection and has not reached a deal on contract cuts with its pilots union, about 100 of whom are expected to picket at O'Hare on Thursday afternoon. Instead, the company recently has begun enforcing cuts in pay and benefits, along with new work rules and outsourcing more flying to regional jets.

The pilots union, the Allied Pilots Association, has not sponsored a sickout by pilots, said spokesman Dennis Tajer. "There is no union-endorsed activity," he said.

Still, pilots are not in great moods these days.

After voting overwhelmingly to reject a tentative contract offer in August, they are the only major work group at American that has not agreed on contract concessions since the airline filed for bankruptcy in November. After the rejection, AMR received bankruptcy court approval to abandon its labor contract with the pilots union and last week began implementing cost cuts.

The airline, which is seeking to save more than $1 billion a year in labor costs, has it said it has to bring down costs to better compete with other carriers that have restructured.

The pilots union is conducting a strike-authorization vote through Oct. 3, a part of the process to potentially staging a walkout.

"The pilots of American Airlines are angry," union President Keith Wilson wrote in a note to members Tuesday. "While AMR management continues paying lip service to needing a consensual agreement with us, their punitive approach of extracting far more value than they need is hardly conducive to reaching a consensual agreement. In fact, they have made that critical task even more difficult."

By Tuesday evening, American Airlines had already canceled 65 flights nationwide for Wednesday, according to FlightAware.com. No other airline had more than eight.