FRONTIER PILOTS VOTE TO STRIKE IF NO DEAL REACHED
Frontier Airlines pilots are ready to strike if contract talks with the Denver-based carrier fall apart.
One hundred percent of eligible pilots recently voted in favor of walking off Frontier jets if the airline and pilots can’t reach a new collective bargaining agreement, according to the Air Line Pilots Association union.
The two sides began negotiations in March 2016, the union said. A neutral mediator has been involved since October. Tensions were heightened last week when an arbiter in a different negotiation between the two sides ruled the airline was acting in bad faith when it failed to deliver on a 2011 promise to boost pilot pay once preset profit margins were reached. The strike vote was announced days later.
“This vote shows the deep anger our pilots feel towards the direction set by our management,” Capt. Tracy Smith, chairman the Air Line Pilots Association’s Frontier unit, said in a news release. “We’re the lowest-paid Airbus pilots in North America, but that pitiful status is definitely going to change.”
Frontier doesn’t intend to let its pilots walk off the job, official say.
“Negotiations with our pilots continue under the guidance of the National Mediation Board,” Frontier spokesman Richard Oliver said in an email. “A strike will not happen as long as these negotiations are in progress. Frontier remains committed to reaching an agreement that is fair for both our pilots and the company.”
The board must decide mediation efforts between the two parties are unproductive and offer to arbitrate the dispute before a strike could take place. If one or both sides were to decline arbitration at that point, either would then be free to “exercise self-help,” according to ALPA. That could mean a strike or a labor lockout by the airline.