Federal Judge Joe Kendall indicated strongly Friday that he is prepared to hold American Airlines’ pilots in contempt of court for ignoring his back-to-work order and continuing a sickout that has crippled the nation’s second-largest carrier.
In a daylong hearing, the judge repeatedly accused the Allied Pilots Association of going out of its way to ground the carrier. He said he would rule Saturday on American’s request for a contempt order against the 9,200-member union. Kendall did not suggest what penalty he might impose, but he could levy fines or even order union leaders jailed.
“My phone is ringing off the hook. The people leaving messages think death by lethal injection would be too good for American Airlines’ pilots,” the judge remarked in one of his many sternly worded gibes toward union leaders.
As he ended the court session, he urged the pilots to put in a “productive evening” calling their colleagues and getting them back to work. The judge made his back-to-work order Wednesday.
Across the country, unhappy passengers faced long lines and dead-end journeys as American scrambled to find alternative seats in the normally busy three-day holiday weekend. Since the dispute began, frustrated travelers at Miami International Airport spawned a near riot, according to the company.
On the eighth day of the dispute, which has affected 450,000 passengers so far, American said it had canceled 1,102 flights out of its 2,250 daily flights. It has already scrubbed 536 flights for Saturday and called off 209 for Sunday with expectations that both numbers are likely to grow.
At Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, where the lines in front of the American ticket counters melted slightly on Friday, the carrier canceled 145 out of 330 flights. Chicago is American’s second-busiest hub behind its Dallas facility, and American is its second-biggest carrier, behind UAL Corp.’s United Airlines.
Though the number of pilots on the company’s sick list slipped slightly Friday, 2,443 still were off the job, or one in four, according to the company.
The pilots’ leaders continued to insist they have done all they can to urge their colleagues to return to work. But the pilots were also clearly angry at the company for taking them to court to face a contempt order and possible fines or jail terms.
“The company sat at the bargaining table last night and our negotiators were not aware of the contempt request. You want to talk about good-faith bargaining,” grumbled Drew Engelke, an American pilot and union spokesman.
There were no talks, he added, while the union’s leaders were in court Friday.
Brian Mayhew, the union’s vice president and a Miami-based captain, insisted there is little the union can do to convince the pilots to return to work.
“I don’t think they will come back until there is a negotiated settlement,” said Mayhew, answering one of many questions posed by the judge. Mayhew is considered the leader of a more militant faction within the union.
The high-stakes showdown between the union and the carrier is the latest confrontation in a long-brewing battle in which pilots have repeatedly tried to limit or block American from expanding the ranks of lower-paid pilots.
The latest dispute stems from the December takeover of Reno Air, a small regional carrier, by American’s parent, AMR Corp. The union wants the pay for the 300 Reno pilots bumped up to the same level as American’s pilots, as of the takeover date. The average American pilot earns about $150,000 a year, nearly twice that of the average Reno pilot.
American has said it wants to stagger the pay increases for the Reno pilots over one and a half years. To immediately put their salaries on a par with the American pilots could cost as much as $50 million, the company said.
Dee Kelly, an attorney for American, told Kendall that “the union leadership seems intent upon bringing this airline to its knees just like the pilots of Eastern Airlines. We’re not going to capitulate under this kind of threat.”
President Clinton, who stepped in two years ago to halt a strike by American’s pilots moments after they walked out, on Friday urged both sides to work out their differences.
“I am concerned about the impact this labor dispute is having on our nation and the traveling public,” the president said in a statement.
With Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day ahead, travel agents were scurrying to transfer American passengers to other airlines and were running into problems finding open seats on the highly popular tourist routes to the Caribbean, Mexico and Florida.
Travelers bound for the Caribbean especially ran into problems because American is the dominant, and in some cases, sole major U.S carrier going to some of the islands.
Two of American’s four major hubs are in Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
For companies that have travel agreements with American, corporate planners have had to switch to other airlines that do not offer them discounts, said Terri Buscemi of Uniglobe Professional Travel Group in Des Plaines.
Once the pilots return to work, American officials say it will take at least three days to get back into full operations since many crews and aircraft have to be rerouted.
So far, the carrier has lost $70 million in revenue, and is likely to lose another $35 million in revenues down the road because people have been shifting to other airlines, said Michael Stellwag, an airline industry analyst with Warburg Dillion Read in New York.
The airline has said it will slightly cut back on its flying in the next three months because it has had difficulty finding pilots willing to accept overtime, which accounts for a fraction of its overall traffic.
