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Pilots Union Reaches Tentative Deal With American

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From Associated Press

American Airlines and its pilots union agreed to a tentative deal Saturday, ending a 16-month deadlock at the nation’s largest carrier that led to bitter charges of a sickout.

Neither side would disclose the pact’s details, except to say that they include higher wages for pilots and changes pilots sought in the airline’s two-tier pay scale.

“It has all the earmarks of a done deal,” said Lou Townsend, spokesman for the National Mediation Board, which moderated talks last week at a Washington hotel.

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The deal averts a costly strike for American, which lost $215 million in the last quarter of 1990 because of lower traffic and higher fuel costs stemming from the Persian Gulf War. The loss erased $175.5 million in profits in the year’s first nine months.

Talks had broken down Jan. 30, when the Allied Pilots Assn., which represents American’s 8,800 pilots, rejected an offer that would have increased wages for cockpit crews by more than $1 billion over four years.

The agreement is subject only to a vote by the union’s board of directors, not its rank and file, union spokesman Tom Hunt said.

The two sides left a handful of issues, including pilot contributions to American’s health plan and retiree medical coverage, to be decided by an arbitrator. The mediation board typically has a pool of arbitrators that parties may select, Townsend said.

American’s pilots until last month were seeking wages like those of Delta Air Lines’ pilots, the industry’s best paid. Top-scale pilots at Delta earn more than $175,000 a year.

American’s last public offer contained a wage scale based on the pay of Northwest Airlines, the second-best in the industry, and bonuses in profitable years. The union’s last public offer proposed wages between those of Delta and Northwest, whose top-scale pilots earn a little more than $150,000.

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