United Airlines pilots are frustrated by the lack of a new contract. Delta’s pilots got one, with big pay raises. Back in December they picketed, CEO Scott Kirby came down to meet them on their turf, and they literally turned their back on him.
- United Airlines actually came to an agreement on a contract with its pilots union. Then they rejected that contract after seeing other negotiations going well at competitors. American announced that they were willing to pay more than was in the United agreement, though that contract hasn’t happened yet.
- Kirby went on television and declared that the richer pilots deal that Delta’s union got was a good thing and would be a pattern for other airlines to match, paying pilots more. He argued higher pilot pay across the industry is great – because it hurts low cost competitors more.
- But an updated deal hasn’t happened yet. And United pilots coordinated a massive protest.
UAL ALPA Pilots Live Nationwide Picketing Event https://t.co/Am8iJp53YT
— United Airlines Pilots (@UnitedPilots) May 12, 2023
@ALPAPilots @UnitedPilots pic.twitter.com/83V6GbQkz0
— Troy Merritt ✊🏼 (@troythepilot) May 12, 2023
There’s a shortage of pilots, and that’s great for pilot bargaining strength.
- Pilots were paid to retire during the pandemic
- Airlines weren’t hiring and training more pilots during the pandemic
- There’s a real moat that pilots have – legal requirements that restrict the supply of pilots (like the 1500 hour rule and mandatory retirement age)
This cashes out as a lack of pilots for regional airlines, with regional jets parked. And it means there’s no reserve army of pilots waiting to be picked up by the majors.
Moreover, pilots have greater leverage over an airline because they can bring it to its knees operationally. In command of an aircraft they can decide not to fly, identify reasons not to fly, and slow down their flying.
- Calling for maintenance to check out things that aren’t actually wrong with an aircraft
- Refusing aircraft with minor maintenance issues
- Not working overtime
- Not answering the phone when the airline calls to come in on an unscheduled day
- Taxiing slowly, taking up as much time as possible
United experienced this during the summer of 2000 when pilots forced the cancellation of over 25,000 flights and the airline carried one million fewer passengers in August 2000 than it had the previous year.
The Onion wrote about that summer’s troubles from the perspective of a Hamas militant who vowed never to fly United again.
“I do not have time for this,” said Hanani, seated at a Burger King in Concourse C, a plastic-explosives-filled duffel bag at his feet. “My jihad against the West was supposed to be carried out shortly after takeoff at 8:35 this morning. It is now 2:50 p.m. How much longer must I sit around this airport like an idiot before God’s will is done?”
…”Why are these airlines so incompetent? …It can only be the lack of discipline in this corrupt, immoral Western country.” “At least I am far less helpless than all the other Flight 225 passengers who wait with me,” continued Hanani, eating a Pizza Hut personal pan pizza he bought for “a ridiculous amount of money.” “Unlike them, I shall reach my destination–the Kingdom of Heaven.”
…For now, Hanani continues to wait. All he can do, he said, is hope there are no further delays. “Upon my death, be it 6 p.m. or 9:30 or midnight, I know I shall be rewarded manifold for my stalwartness,” Hanani said. “But try my patience, this incompetent airline does. On the Day of Judgment, may United’s employees and those of its subsidiaries be condemned to the pits of Hell for all eternity.”
United’s pilots are going to be paid more. And under the circumstances (supply/demand etc), they likely should be paid more. But what, exactly, are the point of the protests?
@ALPAPilots & @afa_cwa, @FlyingWithSara Leadership stands with @united pilots in our fight! #UnitedPilotsUnite #ContractFirstUnitedNext pic.twitter.com/VhHZSNtrQr
— United Airlines Pilots (@UnitedPilots) May 12, 2023
“We delivered during difficult times” means we showed up to work and got paid. And in order to agree to do that, to allow United to keep all of its pilots current and flying, the union demanded positive space first class commuting (indeed, United pilots now trump Global Services members on upgrade lists). Good for them! But they’ve hardly been abused.
My favorite moment today was when @UnitedPilots Chairman Garth Thompson pointed to his white uniform collar and said, “it’s days like today that we’re reminded these collars are actually blue.” A room full of hundreds of pilots cheered – me too! #OneCrew #LaborMovement #1u https://t.co/qEFL3UHD1H
— Sara Nelson (@FlyingWithSara) May 12, 2023
Say what you will about the business logic of providing United pilots with a richer contract, these aren’t traditional blue collar workers. They aren’t working 80 hour weeks to make ends meet and slowly falling behind, they fly 80 hours a month, and are well-paid, and many of them have side businesses.
The Air Line Pilots Association is an AFL-CIO union, and United flight attendants union AFA-CWA is as well. AFA-CWA head Sara Nelson was up for head of the AFL-CIO, so she’s out in force with United pilots. She wants their support. Most of the rest of the marchers are well off, middle-aged white guys, hardly the image of Cesar Chavez standing up with grape workers, “We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.”
Meanwhile 500 Charlotte airport rampers, cabin and lavator cleaners, and truck drivers at an American Airlines ground service provider with an annual median income of $25,030 have just voted to unionize under the SEIU banner. It’s their plight that pilots are appropriating. Of course those workers don’t have the leverage that pilots do. And you don’t often see pilots out showing solidarity with them, either.
What was the point of including an Onion article from before 9/11 about bombing US airlines?
Union scum being union scum.
Tell me you’re anti-union without saying you’re anti-union.
@Bubba gump – if you actually read I flag in this post a union we might sympathize with, nothing anti-union in this post.
I suspect Gary Leff isn’t working under a contract negotiated almost 10 years ago. What a hypocrite.
A couple of things:
1. United pilots don’t get first class commuting. They don’t get positive space commuting at all.
2. The TA that was agreed to in 2022 was not “pulled by the union”. It was voted on by membership and rejected.
3. Pilots regularly show up on picket lines for other work groups. Particularly FAs and mechanics, but other groups as well.
4. I worked as a pilot during the pandemic (although not for United). Showing up for work was not without sacrifice. In the early days (before the virus was better understood), we were coming home locking ourselves away from our families, going to countries where we were literally locked into hotel rooms for days at a time (single use key cards), and getting stuck quarantining away from home for weeks sometimes because of a simple cough.
Anything Sara Nelson is involved in, even tangentially, seems to trigger Gary 🙂
Gary, I seriously doubt you actually type more than 80 hours a month. The 80 hours you allude to is the time from brake release to brakes set at the end of the flight. Preflight planning, studying, and layovers, and computer-based training aren’t included. So the same concept for you would be to only pay you while you are typing. When you stop to think or take a break you will go off the clock.
You are willing to reduce experience and safety because you think it’s going to benefit you. While you think pilots have the company over a barrel, it’s actually the other way around. If you really want a free market, you would be advocating for the elimination of the RLA. This would allow pilots to switch carriers, strike at will, and companies to terminate as they see fit. Air carriers have no desire for this because they can go years past the amendable date without any changes to the contract and pilots have no recourse except to start at the bottom. As an over 65 former pilot, your thought of extending the age requirement further shows you have little clue about this career. You would certainly get a few more pilots, but most (like myself) have no desire to return to this lifestyle, or just physically and mentally couldn’t do it.
While they’re not actually allowed to strike they can always call out sick for longer time and still get paid leaving the airline desperate not to cancel flights.
DA Pilit – okay, since you are using those arguments that you should only be paid while you work – let’s talk about that.
Right now, pilots get paid 60-70 hours of pay per month even if they fly 0 hours. Pilots also get duty rigs, which means that a pilot will get paid a minimum number of hours (5-6 hours) even if they are relaxing on a beach during a layover. Pilots also get paid their full wage to sleep on long haul flights. Would you be for reducing or eliminating pay for both those things? You don’t get paid unless you are physically in the CA/FO seat?
Pilots also got paid during COVID to stay at home courtesy of the US taxpayer. No other industry got such preferential treatment.
The amount of money at an airline (or any business) is not infinite, so every dollar they pay the pilots is a dollar that is not being paid to an airline’s lowest paid employees. Giving 25-30% pay increases every few years for an employee group already making north of 300k is not sustainable or equitable.
What do they hope to accomplish? To put public pressure on United management to offer a contract commensurate with their competitors. While the likelihood of an actual strike in the United States is low, pilots walking a picket line is a visible reminder of the potential stakes. Not all deal-making occurs in hotel conference rooms. This is for the benefit of the court of public opinion and to some extent elected officials.
Alex, UA pilots get 5 hours of sick leave per month. It does accumulate, but then it’s not there if they really need it. To call out sick for the entire month would burn up over a year of accumulated leave.
@DA Pilit – “Gary, I seriously doubt you actually type more than 80 hours a month.”
You can doubt anything you’d like but (1) I work a full time job as a CFO overseeing 300 employees and a $70 million budget, (2) I write this site completely on my own with no employees – roughly half of the traffic versus The Points Guy which until recently had 120 employees.
But go on making stuff up.
@Nick “United pilots don’t get first class commuting. They don’t get positive space commuting at all.” When their trip starts outside of base, or they’re traveling between flight segments, they are entitled to a first class seat.
@Frank – I am not working under a contract at all at my full time job.
Trip. Yes if passengers are off the payroll during a flight I would agree that pilots would be willing to not get paid if they are on break. This is a small portion of flights BTW. And to get the 60-70 hours guarantee you have to be available for work and near the airport. Duty rigs are in place to avoid long sits and from experience I can tell you I normally got less than an hour’s pay that way. The airlines schedule more efficiently to avoid paying it and that is the whole concept of it.
If you think this job is relaxing on a beach during a layover, I urge you to apply. There is a shortage and a good chance you could be hired.
There is an old airline joke that says: If I made as much money as my neighbors thought, and got as much time off as my relatives thought, and had as much sex as my wife thought, this would be a great job!
It’s not like TV. I had a pretty good career, but none of my kids wanted anything to do with it and many others feel the same way. It has its benefits, but it’s a hard lifestyle.
Gary. So how much do you make and what are your benefits? Do you get to choose your days off? Holidays? Middle of the night? Since you manage employees I’m sure you have to work when others can’t, but I’m certain you don’t do this for fun and can walk away at any time.
@DA Pilit – My full time job doesn’t pay as well as a senior widebody captain. I am on call *on my holidays* even and I work weekends too.
The idea that somehow being a major airline pilot is a rough life relative to the pay is silly. You get to fly $100 million airplanes for a living! Sure, you are on the road. And schedules can be tiring. There’s a tradeoff!
And as I write in the post, given the supply of available pilots relative to demand it’s probably the case that pilots should earn more in a new contract than they do today! I have no beef with this. My only question is around the narrative that somehow pilots are oppressed workers.
Gary says: When their trip starts outside of base, or they’re traveling between flight segments, they are entitled to a first class seat.
You failed to mention the other restrictions on this. Just like the idea that on all flights pilots are getting paid to be on rest and all layovers are on the beach.
Bottom line is if this was so great there would not be a shortage of pilots. It doesn’t take long to get 1500 hours, but it is expensive. I quit logging hours at 30,000.
@DA Pilit “Bottom line is if this was so great there would not be a shortage of pilots. ”
Wrong. The shortage of pilots is artificial, (1) the government imposed unnecessary requires that have nothing to do with safety (Europe hasn’t gone alone with the 1500 hour rule and aviation there is just as safe, US pilots fly in Europe and European pilots fly in US airspace as well). (2) There’s the unique confluence of the pandemic where training was largely halted and taxpayer money was used to buy out pilots and get them to retire early, while (3) demand returned faster than anticipated. It takes a long time and is very costly, as a result of ALPA lobbying, to add pilots.
Gary says: My full time job doesn’t pay as well as a senior widebody captain. I am on call *on my holidays* even and I work weekends too.
So out of the around 15,000 pilots at UA (and other airlines), how many get the senior widebody Captain pay? And how many years to get it? I wish I could have started at the top pay, but it took decades.
BTW, I wish there was a way to reply to a post in quotes to make it easier to follow.
DA – suck it. You’re overpaid children.
5 or 6 years since they have had a raise?
How long do you want them to wait?
“Wrong. The shortage of pilots is artificial, (1) the government imposed unnecessary requires that have nothing to do with safety (Europe hasn’t gone alone with the 1500 hour rule and aviation there is just as safe, US pilots fly in Europe and European pilots fly in US airspace as well). (2) There’s the unique confluence of the pandemic where training was largely halted and taxpayer money was used to buy out pilots and get them to retire early, while (3) demand returned faster than anticipated. It takes a long time and is very costly, as a result of ALPA lobbying, to add pilots.”
Hiring pilots at a major airline with under 1500 hours was unheard of until recently. And European airlines have a different training program that until recently US airlines weren’t interested in spending the money on. If you fly 8 hours a day it takes about 6 months to get 1500 hours. While I was trying to get experience for the airlines I typically flew 120-140 hours a month and if the weather was good hit 200 a few months. 1500 hours is not a lot of experience.
Fred: suck it. You’re overpaid children.
Not sure what you mean by that but they all work and support themselves and I quit supporting them financially a long time ago. Some chose careers that pay better than others but they all chose something that they wanted to do for the rest of their lives and they are happy. The airline business doesn’t appeal to everyone.
@Warren Trout – No beef in this post about a richer contract. But well off white guys picketing like they’re oppressed migrant farm workers makes them come off like idiots.
length of time since they’ve had a raise is irrelevant – some people are overpaid and shouldn’t get one – but overall because of demand/supply pilots will get one.
Wow Gary. Where do I start?
“@Warren Trout – No beef in this post about a richer contract. But well off white guys picketing like they’re oppressed migrant farm workers makes them come off like idiots.
length of time since they’ve had a raise is irrelevant – some people are overpaid and shouldn’t get one – but overall because of demand/supply pilots will get one”
Well off white guys? Once the stone age was over they started letting women and minorities fly airplanes.
Length of time without a raise is irrelevant, some people are over paid. Wow, glad you aren’t my CFO.
You still haven’t told us what you make and when you got your last raise. You said you are below a wide body Captain, but are you less than a new hire pilot?
Pilots typically work less than 12 days a month. They get paid almost 2x the 1000 hours they are flying due to contract requirements, training pay, deadheading, minimum pay rules, 2x and 3x for picking up extra shifts etc. They have huge 401k contributions from the airlines and think the airlines owe them everything. Would not surprise me if some pilots make 7 figures at times.
Their greed is astonishing.
Am I anti-union? No. I actually think we need more unions, but for jobs that are on the low end of the pay scale, and I think unions have to be reasonable in what they ask for.
@DA Pilit – “Well off white guys? Once the stone age was over they started letting women and minorities fly airplanes.”
Look at the optics of all the photos being put out by ::checks notes:: United ALPA
“You said you are below a wide body Captain, but are you less than a new hire pilot?” Nope.
@Gary: check your notes again and look at the pictures.
https://www.alpa.org/ual/informational-picket
The first five appear to me to be women, but I am not certain. What do you see?
@Ryan:
Not sure where you get your info but 12 days off is more common than 12 days working. And I worked as much as possible during my final years and because of being senior, I was able to get over 1000 hours of pay for the year. My guess is one or two out of thousands could get 2000 hours of pay. And I don’t know one pilot who has made 7 figures so I think pretty much everything you posted is inaccurate.
Once again, there is a shortage of pilots, so if you are under 65 you should jump in and make 7 figures if you can.
@DA Pilit – check their social media account, and other photos being shared, it’s predominantly older white men. Sure, one photo chosen from a website… :rolleyes:
“Well off white guy” says the well off CFO white guy.
Wow……
Do Doctors still get paid while they are taking naps during their 48hr shifts? Yep.
Do you want to go to the cheapest paid doctor for heart surgery? I know I don’t want to fly on the cheapest paid pilot’s airline.
A lot of guys only get 12 days off a month working 90 hrs missing birthdays, Christmas, thanksgiving, every major holiday for YEARS. Not just just being “on call sometimes”.
There is a pilot shortage. Repealing of the 1500hr would only temporarily help. People generally don’t want to do this job because of the time away from home and for the money they get. For some people it’s not worth it. Accounting for inflation, ticket prices are the lowest they have ever been. Accounting for inflation, pilot wages are the lowest they have ever been.
Airline Pilots, Doctors, and Lawyers are the last professionals and out of the ones I mentioned above, pilots are the only one that start over at year one pay if they switch companies. Airline pilots are the only ones that have to spend a serious amount of time away from home and Airline pilots are paid the least comparing the amount of lives they are responsible for on a daily basis.
Gary Leff… When was the last time you were forced to work on Christmas? And when was the last time a few hundred lives depended on your job performance?
Pilots don’t show solidarity with other groups because they simply don’t care about anyone else as a group. With incredibly small effort, pilots could easily show support for their coworkers but don’t.
Gary,
You got it wrong when you started that the union pulled the contract back due to Delta getting a contract. The agreement that was presented for vote to the pilots was rejected in November. Why didn’t you cover that item when it happened? Management and the union started negotiations again and then the company put things on hold until they saw what other airlines were getting, i.e. Delta. They started again in January negotiating a new contract. The turmoil is because the pilots were promised by, then CEO Munioz, that they would have a new contract on the amenable date. That date was back in December 2019. They failed that promise to the employees. The rejected contract had a 4% pay raise in it. Everyone talks raises but not other costs. The medical insurance increases in the rejected contract went up 20 to 30% depending on the plan. Inflation had increased approximately 14% since the amendable date. So the pay raise wasn’t keeping up with inflation and other increases. Most of this new contract being picketed about isn’t pay, but work rules. Things like reassignment into days off. On call on days off. Vacation and sick leave requirements. Do you have to supply your boss at their request a doctor’s note to validate your calling in sick? Remember this is someone who is responsible for your life while transporting you 7 miles above terra firma. How about doing company required training, 4 to 5 hours worth, for 1 hour if pay? The contract is so much more than pay, but everyone always focuses on the pay rate. When a CEO makes a promise to an employee group and then doesn’t fulfill that promise the employees get upset and picket.
Totally think pilots are way out of line with this, and if I happened to come across one of their picket lines in person I would tell them they were greedy shits to their face.
It’s a ridiculous stunt considering the amounts that legacy airline pilots are currently paid.
Not to mention the fact that it’s a second career for many of them.
Time to get off the teat…
12 days off? Most folk get 8 to 10 at most in a working month.
Lazy Union scum.
Well now. I’ve never read a more clueless piece of alleged journalism in my life. You ought to do more research next time before pitching out such a pathetic amalgamation uninformed prose. And that you would include that little snippet written by a pseudo Hamas militant in your piece of FOD article targeting my fellow UAL pilots is insensitive and beyond pathetic. Did we forget that both UAL and AA lost 34 crew members that day?
You couldn’t find your own conscience…. Let alone your way out of a paper bag.