August 27, 1998 Hotline

  August 27, 1998

ALPA, Intl

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Local Council Meeting
Our last local council meeting on Monday, August 24th had the highest attendance of any
recent meeting. In addition to a roadshow presentation on the PBS sideletters, several
hours were devoted to Council business, with lively debate on a number of key topics. Most
notably, a resolution was entered, debated, and ultimately approved that will allow each
pilot to vote on whether he has reached an acceptable level of satisfaction with PBS after
parallel bidding and testing. The MEC will not agree that an acceptable level of
satisfaction has been reached until the membership so indicates by majority vote. The text
of this resolution will be distributed to pilot boxes shortly.

The eight and final roadshow will be held on Wednesday,
September 2nd at 1 p.m. at the Doubletree Hotel, 320 N. 44th Street in Phoenix. If you
have not yet seen the presentation, or would like to ask additional questions in light of
the resolution from last Monday’s Council Meeting, please plan to attend. Side letter
ratification ballots will be mailed to all members next week.

Heightened Security
In the aftermath of the embassy bombings and the U.S. retaliation, the airline industry
has been placed in a state of heightened security. All pilots are encouraged to maintain
the strictest vigilance, particularly in international operations, and on flights to our
domestic international gateway cities. For more information, check out the recent Security
Committee KIT system update. There is new information on the Central Air Safety KIT
message as well.

MEC Files Grievance
Last Thursday, the MEC filed a grievance on America West’s proposal to restrict non-rev
travel in certain cities in the event of a strike by pilots at Northwest Airlines. The
company announced this week that all restrictions on employee non-rev travel have been
canceled: employees and their dependents will retain all non-rev privileges in the event
of a strike at Northwest. Hence, our grievance has been withdrawn. In a related matter,
the FAA has ruled that Northwest pilots remain fully jumpseat qualified in the event of a
strike. The thirty-day cooling off period ends on Saturday, August 29th.

AWA and FAA
America West continues to weather a storm of adverse publicity as a result of the FAA’s
investigation into its maintenance practices. Today’s headlines were inspired by Freedom
of Information Act releases of the eleven FAA Enforcement Investigative Reports that were
the subject of last month’s settlement agreement between the company and the FAA. The MEC
filed a request for these documents as well, last month. Our Central Air Safety team will
scrutinize them closely.

Many management as well as front line personnel are working
long, hard hours to ensure the company meets its commitments under the FAA settlement.
Nevertheless, it’s abundantly clear that management now bears a double burden: as they
rebuild our maintenance programs they must also rebuild the very credibility of this
airline in the eyes of its employees, the FAA, the press, and the travelling public.

A necessary, and long overdue, first step will be for
senior management to publicly acknowledge the enormity of these challenges, and to
publicly display a willingness to meet them. Until management adopts this posture,
consumer and employee confidence will sink ever lower just as FAA skepticism remains high.
It’s time to step up to the plate.

The next scheduled hotline will be Thursday, September 3rd.
Until then, stay focused, fly safe, fly the contract, and thanks for listening.

That concludes this week’s update. Fly safely; fly
your contract; and wear your pins and ribbons. The next scheduled hotline will be
Thursday, March 4 or sooner if news develops. Thanks for listening.