United pilots ratify contract

Mike Colias

Monday, Jan. 31, 2005 | 11:06 a.m.

CHICAGO -- United Airlines' pilots today ratified a new contract that would reduce hourly wages 11.8 percent, three days after the carrier's mechanics rejected their tentative deal.

United awaited word from its flight attendants' union, which completed voting today on its tentative contract. That agreement would cut pay by 9.5 percent.

United's labor picture remains murky despite the pilots' ratification. The company faces a potential bankruptcy court showdown with its mechanics' union, which rejected a tentative deal Friday that included a 5 percent wage reduction and benefit cuts.

Mechanics voted to strike if United persuades a bankruptcy judge to impose the cuts.

About 75 percent of pilots who voted favored the contract, Air Line Pilots Association spokesman Dave Kelly said. About 77 percent of its 6,400 members cast ballots.

The ALPA contract would save United about $180 million annually. A federal bankruptcy judge was expected to approve the new contract Monday afternoon.

"We will be relentless and steadfast in holding management to an unprecedented degree of accountability, as they now have all of the tools they claim they need to exit from bankruptcy," according to a statement on ALPA's pilots' hot line from union chief Capt. Mark Bathurst.

United, the third-busiest commercial passenger carrier operating at McCarran International Airport, flew 3.2 million passengers to and from Las Vegas last year.

The airline currently offers 40 flights a day on its Ted Airlines discount subsidiary and its United Express commuter partner. Ted and United Express account for 7.5 percent of the seats coming into the Las Vegas market.

United, a unit of Elk Grove Village, Ill.-based UAL Corp., is trying to rework labor contracts with each of its six unions in a bid to save an additional $725 million in annual operating expenses, which the carrier says is critical to its planned exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The unions already agreed to a combined $2.5 billion in concessions two years ago.

Under the deal, wages for a Boeing 747 captain with 12 or more years' experience would drop to $178.91 per hour. Top-scale pay for a captain of a smaller Airbus A320 or Boeing 737 would be reduced to $129.21, and pay for United first officers would range from $88.25 to $122.20, depending on the plane.

The contract also includes a commitment to pay the pilots $550 million in convertible notes when the company emerges from bankruptcy, assuming the group's defined-benefit pension plan is terminated.

A previous agreement that would have reduced pilots' wages by nearly 15 percent and ended its pension plan was thrown out by a bankruptcy judge Jan 7. The judge objected to a stipulation that other unions' pension plans also be terminated for the pilots' agreement to take effect.