Clinton Orders American Pilots to Keep Flying

Invoking a rare emergency measure, President Clinton late Friday blocked an American Airlines pilot union’s move to strike, ordering a 60-day cooling-off period that averts a potentially crippling walkout.

The president’s intervention, which had been sought by many, immediately doused the union leadership’s call to its 9,300 pilots to ground the nation’s largest domestic carrier and its 640 planes.

The Allied Pilots Assn. announced the strike at 9:01 p.m. PST, saying that round-the-clock federally mediated talks had not broken a stalemate over contentious issues concerning job security and pay.

But, seemingly seconds later, Clinton special counsel Bruce Lindsey, who had been briefing the president all night on status of the talks, told reporters at the White House that the president would issue a presidential emergency board.

In a statement announcing his move, Clinton said: “I urge the parties to continue to use the National Mediation Board and the Presidential Emergency Board to redouble their efforts to reach an agreement.”

The appointment of the board, a step that had not been taken since President Lyndon B. Johnson did so in 1966, forces the pilots to work while an independent board drafts a recommended settlement.

The president’s intervention brought a sigh of relief from Orange County pilots such as H.J. Weiland of Laguna Niguel, who was glued to a television set in a Seattle hotel room when the order was issued. Weiland, 49, said he was so hopeful that the strike would be averted that he had not made travel arrangements to get home.

“I started to think I would have to ride a jump-seat with Alaska or United” airlines, said Weiland, an American pilot since 1985. “I thought the president would step in a little sooner and I was wondering if he would, but he did and that’s all that matters.”

Weiland had seen the bitter toll taken by strikes when he worked for Continental--he recalled a depressed colleague who committed suicide at the height of one strike--and he was thankful that some other avenue had been found.

“Anything that will lead to a fair and equitable solution is a positive thing,” he said. “Anything that settles the dispute is good for the airline, the union and the traveling public. Whatever path it takes, it’s better than striking.”

Clinton’s action follows a tense week in which tens of thousands of passengers nationwide had been forced to make alternative arrangements, with some canceling travel plans during the Presidents Day holiday weekend.

The walkout would have had particularly severe consequences at American Airlines-dominated airports such as and Miami and Dallas/Fort Worth, where the company has its headquarters. But it would have caused major disruption in many other areas as well, including Southern California. American operates about 2,200 flights daily, and more than 200,000 people on average board its planes daily.

American has 70 daily departures from Los Angeles International Airport and 14 from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, where some Friday flights were canceled as early as Thursday. The Los Angeles area is home to about 850 American pilots and an additional 3,600 company flight attendants and other employees--most of whom would have been furloughed.

“I feel good,” said Thomas Nulty, president of Associated Travel International, a Santa Ana-based travel agency with 200 offices nationwide. “It would have been very bad for the industry for American to be out of the sky.”

The president’s decision was also welcomed by American Airlines, whose chairman, Robert Crandall, had earlier called for Clinton’s involvement. But many of American’s pilots frowned on the action.

“I’m very disappointed,” said Mark Redelsheimer, 41, an American pilot who lives in Newport Beach.

Redelsheimer and dozens of other pilots along with their spouses and children gathered Friday night at a Long Beach hotel, where they heard a live teleconference from the union in Washington. Applause broke out from the ballroom after the union’s president, James Sovich, ordered local union leaders around the country to shut down the airline. But there was silence after the president’s decision was announced.

Under federal law, the Presidential Emergency Board will take 30 days to propose a settlement. The parties would get another 30 days to resolve the dispute. If that does not work, Congress could impose a settlement.

Throughout Friday and earlier in the week, the White House refused to even hint whether Clinton would use the Railroad Labor Act, saying he did not want to jeopardize the talks or give any advantage to either side. But it was clear he would face mounting pressure to intervene from not only congressional leaders, but travelers.

A strike by the pilots would have been the first large walkout of an airline company since the fall of 1993, when American flight attendants struck for five days. Then Clinton also intervened, without appointing an emergency board, by appealing to both parties to agree to binding arbitration.

This time, American’s pilot union had repeatedly said it would not accept binding arbitration, in which company and union representatives present their sides to an arbitrator, who then imposes a settlement.

In preparation for a strike, American had canceled many of its overseas flights as well 12 round-trip domestic flights scheduled for Friday so that aircraft would not be stranded at airports. With a new credit line, American also had amassed a $2-billion war chest to help weather a walkout.

Early Saturday, American Airlines President Donald Carty said the airline would try to fill its empty seats by offering special sales and extra frequent flier miles.

Crandall has said he would accept binding arbitration to reach a new four-year contract with the pilots, but the pilots’ group has opposed arbitration, saying it would be akin to admitting defeat.

American and its pilots union have been wrangling over a new contract for two years. The two sides tentatively approved a pact last November when American offered the pilots a 5% raise over four years plus stock options on 5.75 million shares of company stock.

But, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, the pilots--who earn on average $120,000 a year--rejected the offer, and their union later proposed that the pilots get an 11% pay hike over four years and options on 7.25 million shares.

Many pilots, however, insist that the critical issue is over who will fly new, smaller jets that American plans to add to its American Eagle commuter fleet--an issue that pilots say endangers long-term job security.

The company wants the jets to be flown by the American Eagle pilots, who currently fly the commuter line’s turboprop airplanes and earn on average $35,000 a year.

The Allied Pilots Assn. fears that American will use the lower-cost commuter planes on American Airlines routes, thus displacing its members. American Airlines, however, claims it can’t accede to the Allied Pilots’ demand without eroding its competitiveness.

One older American pilot in Dallas, who asked that he not be identified, said he voted for the last contract proposal. But he said the commuter jet issue is more of a long-term threat to junior pilots.

“The younger ones are saying, ‘By opening the door and giving American Eagle the regional jets, you’re opening the door to eliminate our jobs.’ ”

David Walsh, an associate professor at Miami University in Oxford, who has written a book on airline labor relations, does not see an easy resolution to the commuter jet situation.

“It’s a serious issue,” Walsh said, adding that both sides have a point. He said, “The [union’s] expectations are higher because the carrier is doing better, and the feeling is you ought to get a share of it. But management’s argument is that we’re doing well precisely because we’ve been able to keep costs down.”

Lindsey, the president’s special counsel, said the White House had determined that if Clinton acted, he would do it before the strike disrupted air service. “We saw little benefit in people being disrupted,” he said.

Though aides said Clinton did not made a final decision until he met with Lindsey, the groundwork for intervention was laid early Friday.

Officials said the three members of the emergency board were recommended by the National Mediation Board, which regulates labor relations in the airline and railroad industry.

The three-member board will be chaired by Robert R. Harris of Maryland, a former chairman of the National Mediation Board who led a special board that resolved a national railroad dispute in 1991. That board was appointed by Congress.

Another member of the board, Helen M. Witt, also chaired the National Mediation Board.

Times wire services contributed to this story.