Airline Labor: Tougher Tactics to Come?

I have the good fortune to be one of the aviation resources some media folks call upon to translate complex aviation babble into language even my 14-year old daughter can understand. We don’t have too many good-news stories in the airline industry these days and certainly never any that connect large airplanes and water in the same sentence. Yesterday the planets aligned for just a few minutes though as the crew of US Airways Flight 1549 succeeded at the near impossible task of a dead-stick landing in an Airbus A 320 into the Hudson River. All aboard survived with only a few injuries.

Much of my time yesterday and today has been spent with the folks at CNN Headline News, Fox TV News, NBC and the Fox Radio network explaining the intricacies of flying to their listeners and there have been dozens of great questions generated. Much of the time when I wasn’t on camera or on hold, I was able to listen in as the producers and the on-air talent worked their magic coordinating resources to turn in a smooth as silk media product.

During one of the calls yesterday, a flight attendant called the CNN folks and I listened closely. A few moments earlier another cabin crewmember had explained the annual training flight attendants are required to complete so I expected something along those lines.

Rather than mention anything about flying, this lady read what was obviously a prepared statement in which she took airline CEO’s to task for accepting huge salaries in the face of staggering industry loses and tens of thousands of layoffs. Referencing the US Airways’ crash, she made it clear that rank-and-file workers were the people out there putting their lives on the line, not the CEOs. They deserve to be fairly treated the lady said and workers had had enough. Then she hung up. What a contrast to the brilliant piloting and cabin organization skills we’d just been talking about, I thought.

The CNN anchorman handled the call in stride, but it was obviously the fist of labor had been raised. I just read a news release that said the Transport Workers Union negotiators had simply walked out of talks with American Airlines Eagle unit in frustration and filed for federal mediation. Of course there is the on-going chaos of the air traffic controller dispute with the FAA.

I thought back to a news release sent out by the Air Line Pilots Association President John Prater to take back the profession from CEO’s who believe workers should carry the burden for management failures.

Now that we are about to install a new president in the White House, a man who most believe will be more pro-labor than George Bush, word on the street is that the tough economy will force even Barack Obama to back down on traditional Democratic support for labor. I can’t wait to see how the first few months evolves. I wonder who is going to be in for more surprises, labor or management.