United, Pilots Reach Agreement
C H I C A G O, Aug. 27 -- United Airlines and its pilots reached atentative agreement Saturday in a contract dispute that forced theworld’s largest airline to cancel or delay thousands of flights.
The two sides met around-the-clock over the past two days,guided by the National Mediation Board. The key issues remaining inthe talks were security and pay.
A spokesman for the pilots, Herb Hunter, would not provide anydetails of the agreement, which he said is retroactive to April 12.The agreement will be presented to the pilots next month.
United’s labor problems began this spring when the contract withits 10,000 pilots came up for renewal.
Pilots began refusing to fly overtime, which they are entitledto do, and that caused chaos with United’s already-tight schedule.The pilots say the airline has long failed to hire enough pilots tocarry out its packed schedule.
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In separate statements, United Chairman James Goodwin and RickDubinsky, who heads the union’s Master Executive Council, said theywere pleased with the agreement.
“Both sides worked hard in complex negotiations to create anindustry-leading contract for pilots, while providing a strong basefor the company’s future growth and success,” Goodwin said.
United spokesman Joe Hopkins would not say how the tentativeagreement would affect the airline’s flight schedule.
United canceled thousands of flights this summer and had anabysmal on-time record. United apologized in newspaper ads and witha television commercial in which Goodwin says the airline hasfailed in its commitment to customers.
“This summer, thousands of people had their travel plansdisrupted while flying United Airlines. If you were one of them, Iwant to apologize personally on behalf of United,” Goodwin saysfrom the cabin of a parked United jet in the commercial.
On Friday, United imposed a “critical coverage” plan,requiring almost all of its 22,000 North American flight attendantsto be on standby for two hours every day for assignments to fly thenext day. The overtime plan, in effect the last week of August, issimilar to one issued in May, Hopkins said.
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