Acrimony is flying between United Airlines and the union that represents its pilots as a result of the union`s proposal to acquire United for $4.5 billion.
In a letter mailed Thursday and Friday to about 6,500 United pilots, Lloyd W. Barry, the airline`s senior vice president for flight operations, suggested that it was the union leaders and their ”hate management” campaign of the last two years that has blocked opportunities for United to grow and to compete more effectively.
The letter also questions whether the union leadership was ”sincere” in various stands it took against United since a 29-day pilot strike in 1985, and hints that those stands may have been taken to advance the chances of a buyout offer for the airline.
Last Sunday, the branch of the Air Line Pilots Association that represents United pilots proposed acquiring United for $4.5 billion from UAL Inc., the Chicago-based travel company.
The pilots say they want to rescue United from UAL. They say UAL`s diversification into the hotel and auto-rental businesses is diverting resources from the airline and hurting its ability to compete.
UAL has not said whether it finds the pilots` proposal acceptable or whether it will accept the pilots` offer to negotiate such an acquisition. But UAL is facing mounting pressure to respond from Wall Street, where many institutional investors and arbitragers have been hungrily buying UAL stock, anticipating a sale.
There are rumors that the UAL board of directors is to meet Monday to discuss responses to the union proposal. A UAL spokesman on Saturday would neither confirm nor deny the rumors.
In a letter sent early last week to the union by UAL, in which the company said it would study the proposal, and in Barry`s letter to the pilots, UAL executives have raised questions about the financial feasibility of such an acquisition and union leaders` motives.
On Saturday, Jamie Lindsay, vice chairman of the union`s United Airlines Master Executive Council, called the letter an attempt to ”pit employee against employee” without addressing the offer.
The union has said that it first began considering an acquisition of United two years ago, or just after it ended its 29-day strike.
In the letter, Barry, a pilot who supervises the United pilots, questions whether ”the `hate management` campaign (by the union leaders) wasn`t just a smoke screen to cover up a much bigger scheme.”
