{"id":4709,"date":"2019-05-21T15:50:35","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T20:50:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=4709"},"modified":"2019-05-21T15:50:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-21T20:50:40","slug":"southwest-ends-mechanics-dispute-as-americans-heats-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=4709","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Ends Mechanics Dispute as American’s Heats Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CHICAGO, May 21 (Reuters) – Southwest Airlines Co’s mechanics union said on Tuesday its members had overwhelmingly voted to ratify a tentative contract agreement with the airline, ending seven years of labor negotiations fraught with legal disputes and flight disruptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The agreement came a day after rival U.S. carrier American Airlines Group Inc said it was filing a lawsuit against its own mechanics alleging an illegal slowdown aimed at disrupting operations to improve their position in labor talks, which began in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts have highlighted labor issues as a main concern for airlines this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mechanics at both American and Southwest have complained that the airlines are moving to outsource maintenance work that has traditionally been done in-house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement on its website, the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, which represents around 2,500 Southwest mechanics, said about 95 percent of its members had voted to accept the labor agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Separately on Tuesday, American Airlines’ mechanics association said it was “ready and willing” to negotiate a fair contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We would much prefer to be at the negotiating table than in a legal battle brought on by American,” the TWU-IAM Association said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski Editing by Susan Thomas and Bill Berkrot)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Southwest Airlines Co’s mechanics union said on Tuesday its members had overwhelmingly voted to ratify a tentative contract agreement with the airline, ending seven years of labor negotiations fraught with legal disputes and flight disruptions.<\/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":[1697,464,118,116,2345,160,82,430,642,4824,660,3545,745,4827,4825,2725,2612,4769,4823,2510,3474,2687,4822,412,4826,4821,1288,2298,186,4587,4828,1921,4820],"class_list":["post-4709","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-agreement","tag-aircraft","tag-airlines","tag-american","tag-association","tag-aviation","tag-chicago","tag-contract","tag-dispute","tag-disruption","tag-flight","tag-fraternal","tag-group","tag-iam","tag-illegal","tag-illinois","tag-labor","tag-lawsuit","tag-legal","tag-maintenance","tag-mechanics","tag-members","tag-negotiation","tag-news","tag-outsource","tag-ratify","tag-reuters","tag-slowdown","tag-southwest","tag-tentative","tag-twu","tag-union","tag-voted"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4709","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=4709"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4711,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4709\/revisions\/4711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}