American Airlines plans to pack more people onto its planes

Source: CNN Money
Author: Chris Isidore

Posted On: June 13, 2013: 2:26 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

Think your flight’s crowded now? American Airlines says it expects to squeeze more seats into the coach sections on many of its planes.

The plans were disclosed in a statement from Lauri Curtis, the airline’s vice president of flight services, to the airline’s flight attendants. The additional seats will mean that the flights will be required by law to have an additional flight attendant on board each flight.

COALITION OF FLIGHT ATTENDANTS COMMENDS TSA FOR KEEPING KNIVES OFF PASSENGER PLANES

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The 90,000-strong Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions today celebrated the success of its campaign to keep knives off planes and commended the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for holding the line against weapons on flights.

“We promised ‘No Knives on Planes Ever Again,’ and today that promise was kept,” the Flight Attendant Coalition announced. “Terrorists armed only with knives killed thousands of Americans on 9/11/2001. As the women and men on the front lines in the air, we vowed to do everything in our power to protect passengers and flight crews from harm and prevent that type of atrocity from happening ever again. We commend the TSA for revising its policy based on input from front line aviation workers with the greatest stake in the rule change. The result is better security policy and the assurance that our nation’s aviation security system continues to be vigilant for knives that could be used in a terrorist attack or criminal act against passengers or crew.” (more…)

MOU Update!

On May 23, 2013, representatives concluded three days of discussions for a four-party Memorandum of Understanding. Attending the meeting were representatives of AFA, APFA, American Airlines management and US Airways management. The parties agreed to resume these discussions in the near future.

Deborah Volpe                                 Roger Holmin
MEC President                                 MEC President
dvolpe78@aol.com                         rholmin@afausairways.org

Major airline merger could take 2 years

Source: wsoctv
Posted: 10:05 a.m. Friday, May 24, 2013

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —

NEW MEC Announced!

Earlier today, the Joint Master Executive Councils convened for a Special MEC Meeting to elect MEC Officers and MEC Committee Chairpersons to unify the East and West MEC’s. We are now one. We would like to thank all the Flight Attendants who showed interest and took the time to apply for these positions. We congratulate the newly elected Officers and Chairpersons. The term of office begins June 1st and ends on December 31st of this year. (more…)

ORGANIZATIONS REPRESENTING 400,000 ON THE FRONT LINES OF U.S. AVIATION SUBMIT LEGAL PETITION TO TSA AND HOMELAND SECURITY TO KEEP ALL KNIVES OFF PLANES

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Lawyers for nine organizations representing 400,000 aviation professionals, passengers and law enforcement officers today filed a legal petition with Transportation Security Administrator John Pistole and copied to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano seeking to rescind plans to allow knives in the aircraft cabins for the first time since 9/11.

“The Transportation Security Administration and the Homeland Security Department cannot dismiss the grave security concerns of 400,000 people on the front lines of U.S. aviation, including TSA’s own Transportation Security Officers and Air Marshals,” the coalition asserted. The coalition also includes flight attendants, gate agents, pilots, law enforcement and passengers. (more…)

Unions could clash after American Airlines merger

Source: CBS News
Posted On: April 29, 2013, 5:02 PM

DALLAS The president of the AFL-CIO is worried that the merger of American Airlines and US Airways will trigger a costly fight between two unions over representation of airline ground workers.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says that instead of fighting over workers who already belong to a union, the two unions should call a truce and share representation of the airline employees. That way, he says, they could focus on organizing workers who aren’t union members. (more…)

Why American Airlines Employees Loathe Management

Source: Forbes
Author: Richard Finger

Posted On: April 29, 2013 9:29am

The mistrust that labor harbors for American Airlines management is a feud with a history filled with a powerful vitriol that only duplicitous behavior engenders. It all began back in 2003 when then CEO Don Carty, after multiple years of billions in losses, used the threat of bankruptcy to wring $1.8 billion in wage and other concessions from the three major constituent unions; the APA (American Pilots Association), the TWU (Transit Workers Union, an AFL-CIO affiliate), and the APFA (Association of Professional Flight Attendants). While a somber Mr. Carty preached to labor that in this dark hour the necessity for “shared sacrifice” he failed to mention the deca-millions in retention bonuses of 200 percent of salary that management had concurrently approved for top executives.

The second tranche of perfidy was the major commission of the omission of disclosing the creation of a new “secret” supplemental executive retirement plan (think pension) being squirreled away only for top executives. Apparently, Mr. Carty felt no comfort in being on equal footing with rank and file employees whose primary pensions may potentially be at risk in a bankruptcy scenario. So the CEO in October 2002 clandestinely funded an irrevocable trust for the top 45 executives which specifically delineated in the trust agreement that trust assets “shall not be subject to the claims of the creditors of the corporation in a bankruptcy”….

Employees were so indignant they threatened to abrogate the recently ratified pay cut labor agreements. The retention bonuses were hastily cancelled but the supplemental pension plan remains in place to this day. Further fallout was the swift “resignation” of the woodenheaded Mr. Carty who received no severance package. But thanks to that recently created executive retirement plan, magically Mr. Carty was gifted $8.2 million. The award was actually closer to $12 million as the $8.2 million was an after tax figure. (more…)

No Knives/Day of Action/MOU Update

No Knives on Planes:

Our country is battling terrorism as we send this, yet Administrator Pistole is still planning to weaken our aviation security by allowing knives in our aircraft cabins.

Read this release from our Union and the Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions

Coalition Of Flight Attendant Unions Calls On Homeland Security Napolitano To Halt Weakening Of Aviation Security As The Country Battles Terrorist Activity

You can make a difference by calling Congress every day for the next six days and planning to attend a rally at DCA on Wednesday,  April 24^th from 12 Noon – 2pm. (more…)

US Airways: American Airlines parent AMR set to file plan for exiting bankruptcy after merger

Source: Washington Post (AP)
Posted On: April 15

DALLAS — US Airways began studying a potential merger with American Airlines several months before American filed for bankruptcy protection in late 2011, according to papers filed Monday by the two companies.
The documents give a blow-by-blow account of how the merger was negotiated, including the thorny issues of how to share ownership of the merged company and who would run it.

The companies also revived a proposed $20 million severance deal for Tom Horton, the CEO of American parent AMR Corp. A federal judge had declined to approve the payout, finding that it violated a 2005 bankruptcy law, but he had left open the possibility that a payment could be reconsidered later. (more…)

HOMELAND SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE CONDUCTS AVIATION SECURITY HEARING WITHOUT FLIGHT ATTENDANT EXPERIENCE

HOMELAND SECURITY SUBCOMMITTEE CONDUCTS AVIATION SECURITY HEARING WITHOUT FLIGHT ATTENDANT EXPERIENCE

Key Stakeholder Perspective Missing at TSA Policy Hearing

Washington, DC – The Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions, representing nearly 90,000 Flight Attendants, questions the validity of an aviation security hearing focused on the ‘perspectives of stakeholders’ that fails to include the experience of our nation’s Flight Attendants.  A representative of America’s Flight Attendants will not testify before the House Transportation Security Subcommittee’s upcoming hearing entitled: “TSA’s Efforts to Advance Risk-Based Security: Stakeholder Perspectives.” The hearing is scheduled to be held on Thursday, April 11, 2013 at 1:00pm.  (more…)

Court approves American Airlines-US Airways Merger

Source: NBC News, Reuters
Author: Nick Brown

A judge on Wednesday approved AMR Corp’s plan to merge with US Airways Group , a step toward creating the world’s largest airline.

AMR, parent of American Airlines and in bankruptcy since November 2011, must still construct a formal restructuring plan incorporating the merger that meets court and creditor approval before the airline can emerge from bankruptcy.

American Airlines announced the plan to combine with US Airways last month, a deal that also requires regulatory approval. (more…)

Flight attendants gather overwhelming congressional support in no-knife fight

Media Advisory for March 22, 2013

 Flight attendants gather overwhelming congressional support in no-knife fight

 Bi-Partisan Letter to TSA with 133 Signatures Calls for Recognition of Flight Attendant Concerns

 Washington, DC – The Coalition of Flight Attendant Unions, representing 90,000 Flight Attendants, applauds Congressmen Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Michael Grimm (R-NY) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS) for taking the lead by authoring a letter to TSA Administrator John Pistole about the abrupt policy change allowing dangerous items in the aircraft cabin. The letter expresses serious concerns about the process used to determine a policy change “without any formal engagement with stakeholders impacted by this policy, including our frontline workers aboard flights, the crewmembers.” (more…)

Preparations for MOU Discussions…

March 15, 2013

With ratification of our single agreement, we secured a seat at the table for four-party Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) negotiations. This means that we get a say in how our future contract will be shaped at the new American. These negotiations are much like the Letter of Agreement that addressed the transition issues in the US Airways/America West merger. It is essentially a process agreement that details how flying will be handled until full operational integration takes place. It also will provide for discussions on the framework for negotiating a single agreement at the new American – and it provides us an opportunity to gain overarching economic improvements upon merger close. (more…)

MEC Officer Elections…

March 15, 2013