FRONTIER PILOTS ROLL OUT A MOBILE STRIKE CENTER
Labor negotiations with airline still not bearing fruit.
Pilots with Frontier Airlines, upset over a lack of progress in negotiations for a new labor contract with the Denver-based carrier, have rolled out a new tool in their campaign to pressure their employer: a 37-foot camper.
The “mobile strike center” was parked in front of the Denver City and County Building for two hours Wednesday. Dismissed as a ploy by the airline, the RV features an image of a hawk with its talons bared and the slogan “Frontier Pilots: 100 percent ready to strike.”
On board is a bedroom turned conference room with a TV tracking all Frontier planes. If pilots choose to walk off the job, they can see if the airline is bringing in replacement crews to fly and use the RV as a mobile meeting place.
During their two-hour plus stint in Civic Center, pilots who make up the leadership of Frontier’s unit of the Air Line Pilots Association, or ALPA, labor union took refuge from the heat on board the RV and made their case that their current contract is unfair. The pilots and airline management have been in negotiations for two years.
“We are the last carrier to be working under a bankruptcy-era contract and Frontier enjoys a great cost advantage based off that,” said Capt. Michael Maynard, vice president of the pilot union’s executive council.
Frontier spokesman Richard Oliver
wrote Wednesday in an email, “We continue to be actively engaged in negotiations with our pilots for a new contract and have exchanged several proposals under the guidance of the National Mediation Board.
“We look forward to working toward an agreement that is fair, sustainable, and provides security for our collective future,” Oliver continued. “Frontier is disappointed that ALPA is resorting to publicity stunts rather than focusing its energy on negotiations.”
Maynard, who has worked for the airline for 11 years, said Frontier pilots make 40 to 60 percent less than peers who fly narrowbody aircraft, when pay, retirement and benefits are taken into account. Pilots agreed to $55 million in concessions in 2009 and 2011 when Frontier was on the verge of collapse.
Now, after a pivot to an ultra-low-cost operation model, Frontier is profitable and growing, routinely flying between 320 and 350 flights a day to 90 North American destinations. But it is refusing to come through on promises to share the riches with its more than 1,200 pilots, Maynard said. The airline was dinged in September by an arbiter who ruled it act- ed in bad faith when it did not deliver on promises in its 2011 contract to raise pilot pay when certain profit margins were met. Pilots voted to authorize a strike the next day.
“Our goal has been and continues to be to reach a market-rate deal with Frontier management, but if the company fails to negotiate in good faith towards that deal, and the tool is offered to us by the National Mediation Board, we will exercise our right to a lawful work stoppage,” Maynard said.
The two sides last met before the National Mediation Board on April 19. Maynard described those negotiations as “regressive” with the airline pulling back on provisions it said it would meet in previous sessions.
With no additional talks scheduled, the union is arguing negotiations are at an impasse and urging the mediation board to move on to binding arbitration. If the board decides that step is warranted, one or both sides could decline arbitration and move on to “selfhelp” options such as a strike or a labor lockout by the airline.
“What needs to happen here is a win-win,” George Hamlin, an airline and commercial aerospace industry consultant, said of the negotiations. “In all likelihood a win-lose becomes a loselose. You think you won, but it may all come down around you ears.”
Hamlin, president of Virginia-based Hamlin Trans- portation Consulting, said Frontier, as an ultra-lowcost carrier, has to keep its costs down to continue offering bargains to passengers. One of the biggest costs any airline has is its flight crews.
But if the airline can’t keep its pilots happy and flying, a work stoppage could also spell trouble. The negotiations are happening at a time when the airline industry is facing a steep pilot shortage, and Hamlin indicated it could be hard to find qualified replacements. Furthermore, pushing a deal that offends pilots could lead many of them to leave for opportunities elsewhere.
As for the impact on the flying public, Hamlin said a strike or lockout could cause some short-term pain in markets where Frontier is highly active — like Denver. But overall, Frontier is a relative small piece of the domestic air travel pie. According to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Frontier made up 2.7 of all passenger miles flown in the U.S. between April 2017 and March.
“In the event that this caused Frontier to perish, airfare in the markets where Frontier was keeping the fare down would go up,” Hamlin said. “But if those markets were capable of generating profitable traffic, they would be backfilled at some point.”