United Flights Halted as 5,200 Pilots Strike
More than 5,200 pilots and first officers went on strike Thursday night against United Airlines, halting national and international operations of the nation’s largest air carrier and stranding passengers and air crews in various parts of the world.
A spokesman for the airline, which normally boards more than 130,000 passengers a day in 157 cities throughout the United States and several foreign countries, said he expects that a contingency plan to keep some flights operating with qualified management and “newly trained temporary personnel” will be implemented by today.
Among the flights the airline said would operate today are seven of the 77 which normally leave from Los Angeles--four to Chicago, two to Denver and one to Honolulu.
The immediate effect, however, was a full shutdown, with pilots walking off the job throughout the system when negotiations between the Air Line Pilots Assn. and United management, held in Boston, failed to produce an agreement by midnight (9 p.m. PDT).
Pilots Notified
Pilots waiting for news in Los Angeles gathered at the Long Beach Convention Center, where they were notified of the strike through a satellite hookup that connected their headquarters in Chicago with regional offices around the country.
At Los Angeles International Airport, a crowd of more than 200, many of them passengers, gathered in the vicinity of the United ticket counter as the strike deadline drew near . . . and passed.
Airline authorities offered them no information concerning the strike. Personnel declined to answer questions, and flight departure times were still posted long after the strike began.
The crowd began to dwindle when the first pickets appeared.
“The first I knew that I wasn’t going to Boston,” said disappointed passenger Mike Hamilton of Westchester, “was when the striking pilots began picketing outside the terminal. Then I sort of got the word--but the airline told me nothing.”
One of the pickets was United First Officer Bill Stewart.
“We feel bad about this,” he said. “We feel a real responsibility to the passengers. But we feel strongly about the wage offer the company has made, too.”
Earlier Flights Canceled
The shutdown had actually begun--unofficially--a few hours earlier, as pilots phoned United operations offices throughout the country to say they were too ill to fly.
In Chicago, United Airlines corporate communications manager Chuck Novak said the airline had had to cancel 155 legs of flights Thursday throughout its system because of “pilot illness”--which Novak said was three times the normal rate of sick calls.
Capt. Dick Rogers, Los Angeles spokesman for the striking pilots’ association, explained that many of the pilots had declined to fly just before the strike deadline because they hoped to avoid being stranded in cities far from their home bases.
He said members had voted to strike eight months ago but had remained on the job while bargaining continued. United and the pilots have been deadlocked for months over a company demand to hire new pilots at dramatically lower starting salaries than it now pays and to keep them for many years at lower wages than pilots hired earlier.
Meanwhile, the union filed a federal suit in Chicago aimed at blocking United from firing striking pilots or hiring replacements during the walkout.
Twelve of United’s scheduled 77 flights from Los Angeles International Airport were canceled before the strike began Thursday. Most passengers were shunted to other airlines, but not all were satisfied with the situation.
Passengers Annoyed
“It’s damn annoying for them to tell you you have a flight and then you come down here and have nothing,” said Joyce Skinner of Hancock Park, whose flight to New York City was one of those canceled. “My friend, Mary Roberts, and I really need to get back there on time.”
Roberts’ daughter died earlier this week in New York, she said, and they were en route to the funeral.
Equally discomfited was Jerry Palmer of Denver.
His Denver-to-Fresno flight had been rerouted to Los Angeles, he explained, but his baggage went to Fresno in another airplane. Now he was having trouble finding a flight back to his home.
“I booked this a month in advance,” he growled. “If I break a (airline) ticket date anywhere, I get fined $50. But I don’t think I’ll be getting $50 from them for this inconvenience . . . “
But James A. Hardie, a computer software salesman from Chicago, said he really didn’t mind.
“I get paid by the day,” he said, “and if I don’t get back to home base because an airline shuts down, I get extra expenses and extra pay!”
Other potential passengers were scrambling for reservations on other airlines as the pre-deadline hours dwindled, however.
“People are actively booking away from United,” said Richard Carter, senior vice president/marketing of Van Nuys-based Ask Mr. Foster, the nation’s largest travel agency.
No Talk of Extension
Helen Witt of the National Mediation Board, who had been prodding the two sides to settle in negotiations at a Boston hotel, said late Thursday that there had been no talk of extending the strike deadline.
Negotiators continued to meet after the strike began. When they recessed at 2:30 a.m., there was no word on when the talks would resume.
United spokesman Novak said the company’s negotiators had reported some progress during the day, but Sam O’Daniel, a spokesman for the pilots, said there had been little progress on the key issue--United’s proposed new wage system.
“Our committee told us the company was standing pat on their original position on the two-tier scale. One of our negotiators said the company is immovable on that issue,” O’Daniel said.
O’Daniel, in a telephone interview from his base, United’s Chicago hub, said some minor issues had been settled but added, “We figured Mr. Ferris would take it to the wall. If he can pull a Lorenzo, he’ll be the hero of his country club.”
O’Daniel was referring to United Airlines Chairman Richard Ferris, who has said he is determined to cut his airlines’ labor costs, and to Frank Lorenzo, the Continental Airlines chairman, who declared his company in bankruptcy in 1983 in order to abrogate its labor agreements.
Plan Some Flights
Novak said the airline would keep flying in the event of a strike, although at a considerably reduced rate. He said details on routes would be divulged later.
He said the company has 270 pilots in management who could be pressed into service. The company has also trained between 450 and 500 pilots to be second officers (co-pilots) on Boeing 727s, the entry-level pilots position at United, who would be hired immediately now that there is a strike.
Novak also said that the company had received 5,000 applications for pilots to fly its larger wide-bodied planes, such as Boeing 747s and DC-10s, in response to newspaper ads it has placed in recent weeks. “We figure we could easily get 1,000 qualified pilots out of the 5,000,” he said.
United may also start directing pilots to fly more hours than they currently do, Novak added. But he said the amount of flying time would still be within Federal Aviation Administration regulations.
O’Daniel of the pilots union was skeptical about United’s ability to operate to any degree in a strike. “They might be able to put a minimum skeleton operation in the air with management pilots and scabs,” he said.
Earn Up to $151,944
United’s pilots are paid an average of $86,450 a year. Novak said the strike would allow the company to implement the salary structure it has been hoping to gain in negotiations: Newly hired 727 pilots will be paid $21,600 a year, compared to the current starting rate of $22,452. New captains for wide-bodied planes would be paid $75,000 a year, a dramatic drop from the $151,944 a United 747 captain now earns.
The union has objected to the two-tier pay scale because there would be such a huge difference in pay for pilots doing the same job. “That would bring a cancer into the cockpit,” O’Daniel said.
The pilots said they hope to get the support of United’s machinists and flight attendants. Last year, those employees agreed to a two-tier salary structure. Under those agreements, the salaries of newly hired machinists or flight attendants begin to merge in the sixth year with people hired earlier. The pilots told the company they would accept a similar arrangement, but O’Daniel said the company is demanding that the scales not merge for 20 to 25 years.
$6.2 Billion in Revenues
United, which last year had revenues of $6.2 billion, an operating profit of $546 million and a net profit of $282 million, has sent letters to the “hundreds of thousands” of members in its Mileage Plus frequent-flyer program attempting to allay some of their concerns about a strike.
“Even if a strike occurs, it will not affect you as seriously as you might imagine,” the letter states, adding that the company will make special efforts to serve the needs of Mileage Plus members, including special check-in areas and a toll-free number for daily updates on flight information. And the letter promises that if a member has to use another carrier on a United route during the strike, he will receive credit for up to 10,000 miles.
Times Staff Writers Dean Murphy and Ted Thackrey Jr. contributed to this article.
