{"id":3853,"date":"2019-02-23T18:43:47","date_gmt":"2019-02-24T00:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=3853"},"modified":"2019-02-23T18:43:52","modified_gmt":"2019-02-24T00:43:52","slug":"southwest-ceo-says-mechanics-deserve-new-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=3853","title":{"rendered":"Southwest CEO Says Mechanics Deserve New Contract"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CHICAGO\n (Reuters) – Southwest Airlines Co’s mechanics, who have been in labor \ncontract talks for more than six years, deserve a new deal that makes \nthem among the best paid in the airline industry, but the low-cost U.S. \ncarrier needs “more supplier flexibility” in return, the company’s chief\n executive said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n labor dispute, one of the biggest to hit a top-four U.S. airline in \nmore than a decade, has escalated with Southwest’s daily out-of-service \naircraft doubling, forcing the carrier to cancel hundreds of flights \nsince Feb. 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Southwest\n CEO Gary Kelly in an email to the company’s employees acknowledged the \ncompany was “in a period of tension and turmoil” regarding the \nout-of-service aircraft. Reuters obtained a copy of the email late \nFriday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelly\n said the mechanics deserve a new contract and pointed out that the deal\n the mechanics voted down last year would have made those workers the \nhighest paid in the industry. He said current talks offer the \nopportunity to offer even higher pay with no impact on job security “in \nexchange for more supplier flexibility.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Southwest\n already outsources the majority of heavy maintenance work, such as \nscheduled engine repairs, to external suppliers, but wants the option to\n send more scheduled maintenance abroad in order to fund compensation \nincreases. The change would not affect the kind of work currently \nhandled by its mechanics, a Southwest spokesman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials\n with the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association (AMFA), which \nrepresents about 2,400 Southwest mechanics and has been in contract \ntalks with management since 2012, could not immediately be reached to \ncomment on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n union has disputed the notion that the maintenance issues are driven by\n the labor dispute, pointing out the company has the lowest \nmechanic-to-aircraft ratio of any major carrier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\n a Friday email to its members, the union rejected the company’s \nassertion that the maintenance issues were a job action and said \nmechanics should not allow themselves to be pressured to ignore safety \nor mechanical issues with a plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If\n you feel you are being pressured to disregard aircraft damage or \nshortcut the manuals, then let your airline representative know of such \nthreats,” union national director Bret Oestreich said in the email. “But\n do not get baited into acts of defiance that will be characterized as \ninsubordination.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flights\n by Southwest accounted for more than a third of 777 U.S. cancellations \nbetween Friday and Saturday, according to FlightAware.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago, Additional reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Andrea Ricci)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southwest Airlines Co’s mechanics, who have been in labor contract talks for more than six years, deserve a new deal that makes them among the best paid in the airline industry, but the low-cost U.S. carrier needs “more supplier flexibility” in return, the company’s chief executive said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[797,89,2203,1397,868,1103],"tags":[539,464,118,3546,2345,1925,1024,1216,430,1924,447,3540,642,3542,335,1907,3547,3545,3541,702,1681,3374,2612,1923,2510,3474,718,412,2898,3543,3544,1288,186,2579,1921],"class_list":["post-3853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airline-news","category-aviation-news","category-finance-news","category-stock-news","category-transportation-news","category-travel-news","tag-air","tag-aircraft","tag-airlines","tag-amfa","tag-association","tag-carrier","tag-ceo","tag-chief","tag-contract","tag-cost","tag-deal","tag-deserve","tag-dispute","tag-employee","tag-engine","tag-executive","tag-flightaware","tag-fraternal","tag-gary","tag-heavy","tag-industry","tag-kelly","tag-labor","tag-low","tag-maintenance","tag-mechanics","tag-new","tag-news","tag-officer","tag-outsources","tag-repair","tag-reuters","tag-southwest","tag-talks","tag-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3853"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3856,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3853\/revisions\/3856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}