Allied Pilots Association

Headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, the Allied Pilots Association (APA) serves as the certified collective bargaining agent for the 15,000 professional pilots who fly for American Airlines. APA was founded in 1963 and is the largest independent pilots’ union in the world. APA provides a broad range of representation services for its members and devotes more than 20 percent of its dues income to support aviation safety.

HEADLINES

APA in the News

CNBC, March 12


FAA needs to investigate airlines and maintenance shops, not just Boeing

APA spokesman Capt. Dennis Tajer told CNBC that his experience with Boeing aircraft goes back to his days as a military pilot. “Boeing airplanes saved my tail many times in combat. The enemy was outside the airplane,” he said during an appearance on Last Call. “Now it feels like the enemy is within.” Watch the interview ...

 

News Nation, March 12


‘We’ll never cease to fight to protect our passengers’

On March 9, Boeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead from what “appears to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” but police are investigating. “Every day is a new disclosure and a new shock to us,” APA spokesman Capt. Dennis Tajer told News Nation. “We’ll never cease being shocked, but we’ll also never cease to fight to protect our passengers.” Watch the interview ...

 

WTBS-TV, FEB. 29


Flight from New York to Spain diverts to Boston due to cracked windshield

After an American Airlines flight bound for MAD diverted to BOS due to a cracked windshield, WBTS turned to APA spokesman Capt. Dennis Tajer for the pilot perspective: “What it comes down to are two trained and experienced pilots making those judgement calls to protect our passengers. It is safe to fly. Your last line of defense is literally me and thousands of other pilots out there.” Watch the interview ...

WHAT'S HAPPENING

APA Public Statements

1995 Just Called – America West Wants its Business Model Back

1995 Just Called – America West Wants its Business Model Back American Airlines management has been busy for the past few weeks. For the first time in seven years, management hosted an “Investor Day” on March 4, using it to unveil portions of their updated business plan. The Investor Day and the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference that followed gave us a peek into the company’s strategy and how it may affect our future flying. Unfortunately, the news isn’t good from our pilots’ perspective. Chief Executive Officer Robert Isom sees future profitability as dependent on growth opportunities in underserved domestic markets, with the crux of his business plan revolving around these marginal locations. In other words, the airline management team responsible for producing profit margins that badly lag those of Delta and United believes that opportunity beckons by taking on Southwest Airlines and the ultra low-cost carriers. Not mentioned once: defending the cornerstone cities that American Airlines’ historical business plan was built on, which produced a revenue premium. In his Investor Day remarks, Chief Commercial Officer Vasu Raja emphasized that “short haul is the foundation of value for customers and investors.” The importance of the Sun Belt, upgauging the airline (flying larger airplanes to smaller cities), and improving the domestic network were his primary focus. He mentioned “opportunities in El Paso” more than a dozen times. At least there’s good news if you happen to live in El Paso. But where are the legitimate opportunities for future growth that produce profits? Vasu remarked that long haul will be used “only when demand peaks,” signaling an intention to revert to the regional operation this America West management team cut its teeth on, albeit on a larger scale. Chief Operating Officer David Seymour followed up with an emphasis on operational reliability improvements and the airline’s ability to recover from IROPS “better than anyone else,” but he made little mention of how his original schedule construction will change to build robustness into the system from the get-go, thus avoiding the need to put the operation back together in the first place. He also didn’t address our persistently high reserves head count that far exceeds the industry average. American Airlines puts thousands of pilots on reserve who could be holding lines and flying more predictable, profitable, and efficient schedules. Our average reserve pilot flies approximately 55 hours each month, while the average lineholder flies more than 85 hours. Efficiency takes a back seat to reliability as long as David chases on-time metrics and emphasizes reliability while leaving thousands of reserve “firemen” on the schedule to put out the inevitable fires when his computer-generated schedules fall apart. Boeing recently relearned the hard way that ignoring input from its most valuable resource, its employees, is not in a company’s best interests. Yet American Airlines management seems intent on doing the same things over and over while expecting different results. Our schedules have been broken since before emerging from the pandemic. Narrowbody trips continue getting longer and more onerous. Average line values have not moved down appreciably, our trips haven’t been broken up into more manageable pieces that our pilots can pick up between large chunks of flying, and our trip trade lights have remained stubbornly red since David locked them down in September of 2022. Despite the promises, we’ve witnessed little if any actual improvement. Management’s “new” business plan doesn’t include a focus on improving operational efficiencies and instead centers on future short-haul revenue opportunities that may or may not produce profits. As we have seen from the recent foray into Austin, these well-intentioned plans are typically money-losers. The profits are almost never in line with our competition at Delta and United, which see the benefit of catering to the premium, business, and international customers that American Airlines appears to be abandoning. There is another problem with the new business plan. The increased emphasis on short-haul domestic flying also leaves the company on an inevitable collision course with our Scope clause. Section 1 of our contract is the foundation of our flying agreement, capping management’s ability to fly regional jets while also limiting their ability to fly from non-hub cities to other non-hub cities with RJs (spoke-to-spoke). This was the source of the most recent Scope violation that we arbitrated in February, with the arbitrator’s decision pending. The only ways out of this “square corner” the new business plan creates are absorbing one or more of the wholly owned operations, putting RJs on our seniority list, or attempting to renegotiate our Scope clause, and the latter will most certainly be met with virulent opposition. Investors didn’t like what management had to say, with American’s stock dropping while Delta’s touched a year-to-date high. It’s unclear why management wants to play in the ULCCs’ sandbox and try to compete for their price-conscious customers instead of fortifying and defending the strong hubs we once had in cities like New York that historically produced a revenue premium. If our paltry profit-sharing checks are any indication of the plan’s efficacy, we’re in trouble. The decisions made in the front office don’t bode well for those of us who thought we were being hired by a mainline flag-carrying airline that would provide us with widebody long-haul opportunities and remain solvent in the next inevitable downturn. America West 2.0? As your advocates, we will continue voicing our concerns to management about their stated plans. While we don’t run the airline, we possess a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge thanks to serving as the airline’s frontline leadership. We see firsthand what works and what doesn’t, and we understand what’s in our best interests as pilots. We are convinced American Airlines needs a significant course correction, and we stand ready to help make that happen by working collaboratively with management, provided management is willing to work with us. CA Ed Sicher APA President

Allied Pilots Association: “Perceived Pilot Shortage is Over”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Capt. Dennis Tajer, 847-902-8481/Gregg Overman, 817-302-2250 Allied Pilots Association: “Perceived Pilot Shortage is Over” FORT WORTH, Texas (March 8, 2024) – The Allied Pilots Association (APA), representing the 16,000 pilots of American Airlines, cited the slowdown in hiring as further evidence that the U.S. pilot supply is sufficient to meet forecast demand and that the mandatory retirement age for pilots should stand at 65. “The perceived pilot shortage is over, eliminating any further need for policymakers to consider changing the retirement age,” said APA President Capt. Ed Sicher. American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, and United Airlines all recently announced plans to slow or halt pilot hiring for the remainder of 2024. In an investor note this week, TD Cowen said this: “We now believe the demand is fulfilled and expect hiring to normalize in 2024.” “Safety considerations drove the establishment of the current international standard of age 65 mandatory retirement for pilots. Before making any change to this standard, we need data demonstrating the margin of safety would remain intact,” Capt. Sicher said. “No such data exists, and considering any change to pilot retirement age in the absence of supporting data would be ill-advised. Fortunately, there is no longer any perceived urgency.” Founded in 1963, the Allied Pilots Association — the largest independent pilots union in the United States — is headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. APA represents the 16,000 pilots of American Airlines, including several hundred pilots on full-time military leave of absence serving in the armed forces. The union’s website is AlliedPilots.org.

WebTPA Security Incident

WebTPA Security Incident On Dec. 28, 2023, WebTPA, the third-party administrator for the APA Voluntary Supplemental Medical Plan (SMP), detected evidence of suspicious activity on its network and immediately launched an investigation. While their investigation is not yet complete, WebTPA recently notified APA that it appears an unauthorized actor accessed information on WebTPA’s network. WebTPA is still uncertain as to the extent of the security incident and whether it affected any APA members. We will keep you apprised as we learn more from WebTPA. What we have been told is that certain WebTPA files containing eligibility information such as name, contact information, date of birth, gender, Social Security number, member identification number, and subscriber identification number may have been accessed. While we do not know for certain whether information relating to any APA members has been impacted by this cybersecurity incident, given the nature of the information involved, we encourage all members who are or have been enrolled in the APA Voluntary Supplemental Medical Plan (SMP) to remain vigilant in checking their financial statements, credit reports, and any communications related to their health care for suspicious activity. WebTPA has assured APA that it promptly initiated measures to mitigate the threat and further secure its network. The industry-leading cyber response team WebTPA retained has determined the incident is now contained and WebTPA’s information systems are secured. APA has also secured a commitment from WebTPA that it will provide credit monitoring and identity theft protection services, at no cost, to any members who may be determined to have been impacted by this incident. Once again, we will update you on this situation as we learn more from WebTPA. In the meantime, please direct any questions to WebTPA at webtpa.compliance@webtpa.com or 1-800-758-0989.

Update on FAA Reauthorization

Update on FAA Reauthorization  Fellow APA pilots,  Your Government Affairs Committee is on the ground in Washington, D.C., monitoring the latest developments regarding the reauthorization of the FAA. This morning, the Senate’s Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee voted on the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2023 (S. 1939), which is the Senate’s version of the FAA reauthorization bill. The House passed their version in July 2023. During today’s hearing, an amendment to the bill that would have raised the mandatory pilot retirement age to 67 was rejected on a 14-13 vote. The committee then unanimously approved a version of the bill that did not include any changes to the retirement age. The mandatory retirement age has been a hot topic in the aviation community. APA, in concert with ALPA and SWAPA, opposes a change to the mandatory retirement age. While today’s Senate committee vote is a significant development, the debate to raise the age is still not over. Once S.1939 reaches the Senate floor for a vote, this provision could be offered again as an amendment to the bill. Additionally, the Senate bill’s differences with the House bill will need to be reconciled in what is called a “conference.” The House of Representatives has included the increase to age 67 in their version. Although the retirement age issue has not been fully settled yet, there are many wins in S.1939 that your Government Affairs Committee has been tirelessly advocating for on your behalf. These advances have had broad bipartisan support. They include: Strengthening FAA oversight of foreign repair stations working on U.S. aircraft to ensure one level of safety and support for U.S.-certified mechanics. Improving a cabin air safety provision to advance rules for airlines to provide training and reporting for fume events. Expanding and increasing funding for the FAA Aviation Workforce Development Grant program to support the education and recruitment of pilots. We will continue to keep you updated on further developments as this bill reaches the Senate floor and is conferenced with the House. If you have further questions, please reach out to your Government Affairs Committee at CMTE-GAC@alliedpilots.org .

APA’s Legislative Priorities

APA makes its voice heard on Capitol Hill.

Video Highlight

“We Are Proud”

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