American Airlines Chairman Robert Crandall on Sunday confirmed what many American ticket holders feared: Traveling on the airline this holiday week could be a nightmare.
Crandall said that because of the four-day-old flight attendants’ strike, the airline expects to operate only about 37 percent of its regular 2,262 daily passenger flights this week, the beginning of the year’s busiest travel period.
For passengers using Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, American’s second-largest hub, the situation will be worse. Crandall said the airline expects to fly only 12 percent of its regularly scheduled 350 daily departures from O’Hare.
He said he’s hopeful the situation will improve later in the week and that the airline will have at least 50 percent of its flights available nationwide by week’s end.
The airline has been nearly crippled since a majority of its 21,000 flight attendants walked off their jobs in a contract dispute last Thursday. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants claims that about 95 percent of its members are on the picket line.
There were no signs of progress Sunday.
Crandall rejected a union proposal that the company seek President Clinton’s help in ending the strike. The union had held a news conference and urged the creation of an emergency presidential board to mediate its differences with the airline.
Crandall, who held a news conference of his own, dismissed the idea, saying that presidential mediation boards historically have taken the middle ground in labor disputes. He said the airline cannot afford to give the flight attendants a better deal than the $100 million-plus package it offered before negotiations ceased.
“At issue is American’s long-term survival as an airline,” Crandall said.
Denise Hedges, president of American’s flight attendants union, called Crandall’s refusal “another example of his unwillingness to negotiate.”
A presidential emergency board involving the airlines has not been created since the mid-1960s.
The union, which said it plans to end its strike next Monday, is seeking more than the 7.8 percent average wage increase per year being offered by the airline over the next four years. The union also is opposing changes in benefits and work rules being sought by the carrier.
“We can’t afford another concessionary contract (from the airline),” Hedges said.
The impasse does not bode well for passengers seeking to travel during the holiday period.
Crandall said American will begin contacting its ticketed passengers at least 24 hours before their scheduled flights to let them know whether their flights have been canceled.
Transportation Secretary Federico Pena had reprimanded the airline Friday for failing to do an adequate job of informing its passengers of delays and cancellations resulting from the strike.
“We’ve served our customers badly,” Crandall admitted Sunday. He added that the airline apologized for any inconvenience it has caused the 200,000 passengers the airline carries on an average day.
American will do all it can to accommodate travelers during the balance of the strike, Crandall said. However, he said that without a full schedule of flights, getting all ticketed passengers to their destinations this week will be impossible.
As a result, he said, the airline will continue to book on other airlines passengers whose American flights are canceled. Such passengers also have the option of getting a full refund or using their ticket toward another American flight within the next 12 months, Crandall said.
Ticketed passengers unable to travel for any reason because of the strike between Tuesday of this week and next Monday, will, in addition to obtaining a refund, receive a $100 voucher for use toward the purchase of another ticket on American during the coming year.
Crandall noted that travel will be significantly easier for those ticket holders flying in or out of Dallas-Ft. Worth, American’s largest hub. He said 75 percent of the airline’s flights will run as scheduled from that airport.
Miami will have 77 percent running; Los Angeles 35 percent; and New York’s Kennedy and LaGuardia Airports, 53 percent and 45 percent respectively.
Crandall estimated that the strike is costing American more than $10 million a day-“perhaps substantially more.” Because of the strike, he added, the airline undoubtedly will end up losing money for the year.
The flight attendants union contends the airline is losing much more, closer to $25 million a day.
Meanwhile, American is continuing to train replacement workers for the striking attendants’ jobs. Crandall said the airline has interviewed more than 5,000 applicants and has selected more than 1,200 for training.
He said these workers will become permanent if they work just one flight before the strike ends, and they will have priority over striking attendants for available positions when the strike is over.
Crandall said that because the airline could be forced to reduce operations after the strike, 4,000 flight attendant positions likely will be eliminated. That means, he said, at least 4,000 of the returning strikers could find themselves without a job next Monday.
American’s labor problems are turning out to be good news for many of its airline rivals.
To help alleviate some of the backup in passenger traffic, other airlines have begun using bigger aircraft and adding flights.
Northwest Airlines on Sunday expanded its capacity at several airports, including O’Hare. The carrier began operating an extra flight between Chicago and Memphis and replaced a 146-seat Boeing 727 jet plane with a 404-seat Boeing 747 on its flights between Chicago and Detroit.
Major beneficiaries of the strike include United Airlines, which transported 9,000 American passengers at O’Hare on Thursday, the first day of the strike.
Midway Airport also is benefiting. City Aviation Department officials say many stranded O’Hare passengers are turning to the Southwest Side airport. Ten airlines serving Midway had 27,000 bookings as of Friday for flights over the Thanksgiving holiday. That compares with 10,000 bookings for the same period last year, according to Lisa Howard, spokeswoman for the department.
