The Master Executive Council at United of the Air Line Pilots Association emphatically denies United’s allegations that it is involved in an organized effort to encourage pilots to call in sick or turn down extra trips.

United sued ALPA and four individual pilots in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, last Wednesday to obtain injunctive relief, saying an unusually high number of sick calls led it to cancel 329 flights July 19-27. It states in the lawsuit that ALPA’s actions are “irreparably harming United in the form of increased costs for reserve staffing (some $15 million a year), lost profits from flight cancellations (some $3.9 million in the past two weeks of July alone), and incalculable harm to its customer goodwill and business reputation in an industry in which customers have a choice of air carriers and make decisions based on reliability and reputation.”

Steve Wallach, chairman of the United MEC, responded that “if canceled flights and impacted customers and employees are gauges of warranted suits, then United should have sued itself long ago.” He said there is no deliberate, organized or unlawful job action under way, either by the pilots individually or collectively.

ALPA has outlined deficiencies on numerous occasions in properly manning and managing the airline, Wallach says. “This management, led by the incompetent Glenn Tilton, does not know how to run an airline.”

United claims in its lawsuit that ALPA has engaged in a campaign for more than a year to encourage its members to adhere strictly to the contract and refuse voluntary assignments. It also claims ALPA encouraged a sick-out to oppose the company’s decision to furlough 950 active pilots. United says that since June, “the decibel level of ALPA’s rhetoric” has increased, and so has sick leave usage.

The lawsuit claims that one of the pilots established a password-protected Web site to facilitate unlawful actions by the group. That site at presstime was unavailable. Posted on the site is a message that states the message board should be back up soon, and that the purpose of the board is for pilots to give each other support.

United says that it “simply cannot afford a repeat of the summer of 2000,” when pilots engaged in a well-publicized work slowdown. It is seeking to enjoin ALPA from advocating or engaging in any form of job action designed to put economic pressure on the company.

The Association of Flight Attendants at United is giving its support to the pilots, calling the lawsuit the latest union-busting tactic that only fans the flames of an already “poisonous” labor atmosphere at United. “Not content to destroy labor relations, and to destroy the passenger experience, the geniuses that run this airline have also destroyed shareholder value in the past year,” the AFA statement said.

Photo: Airbus