Photo courtesy of American Airlines Group
American Airlines Group has hit an impasse with the pilots union for its American Eagle regional brand.
The pilots rejected the latest contract proposal in an overwhelming vote last week. Of the 2,700 American Eagle pilots eligible to vote, 92 percent voted and 70 percent voted against a 10-year proposed contract that capped pay for first officers at $38,000 per year after four years and eliminated profit-sharing.
In exchange, AAG was offering to increase the number of pilots it hired each year to promote to its mainline American Airlines brand, where pilots make significantly more money than on regional carriers.
American has said it will not eliminate the American Eagle brand in the wake of the vote, but it will shrink the carrier and intends to give the planes it has on order to other third-party regional airlines. In fact, American had already said two months ago it was renaming American Eagle to "Envoy."
The latest offer included too many additional concessions, the Air Line Pilots Association said, for American Eagle pilots who have not received any contractual gains in 10 years and, in fact, agreed to $43 million in cost-cutting when American was in bankruptcy.
But American is now out of bankruptcy and has created the largest airline in the world with its December merger with US Airways.
"We're not ready to agree to concessions in this environment," Capt. Rich Krutenat, who has worked at American Eagle for 16 years, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "The opportunities are far too abundant for Eagle pilots elsewhere for them to sit around and wait for something that might happen."
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