Winning a lucrative promotion to captain may seem like an easy call for airline pilots. But at United Airlines, pilot union members involved in lengthy contract negotiations said the higher pay and status were not worth the personal cost.
The captain shares the cockpit with the first officer, who assists them with navigation and dispatch. But union officials say more co-pilots are reluctant to become captains because it could require longer missions on short notice and require more on-call time.
“The pandemic has changed the way many workers think about work-life balance, and that’s certainly happening in our pilot workforce,” said Garth Thompson, captain and president of the unionized division of the Airline Pilots Association. “It will start to snowball and affect the company’s pretty aggressive growth plans.”
Negotiations between United, one of the largest U.S. airlines, and its pilots union have settled quality of life issues. They reflect broader changes in the pandemic, as workers seek better working conditions in addition to higher wages.
According to Thompson, United has 5,900 captains and 7,500 first officers. A co-pilot who flies a wide-body jet for six years at the airline is said to earn about $210,000 a year, while a captain who flies a narrow-body jet for six years will earn about $210,000 more if they fly the same number of hours. twenty two%. Aviation consultant Kit Darby.
However, pilots say that moving from senior first officer to junior captain requires sacrificing some control over when and where they fly. For some, the wage increase isn’t worth the extra disruption to their family life.
Quincy Fleming, a United Airlines co-pilot who flew the Boeing 777 out of San Francisco, said the promotion to captain would make it more likely that she would be denied some vacation requests and be forced to work on days off. flight.
“What I’m not willing to do is put myself back at the bottom of any seniority at this point in my life,” Fleming said. “I have elderly parents. I have school-aged children.”
United plans to add 470 planes over the next few years. Fitch Ratings analyst Joseph Rohlena (Joseph Rohlena) said that historically, Manchester United have not had a difficult time filling the captaincy. He dismissed any threat to the airline’s growth from a shortage of captains, saying it would be able to “find pilots so they can grow as planned”.
Contract negotiations with United pilots began in 2019, and members voted 94% to 6% against the proposed contract in November. In addition to raising wages, one of the union’s priorities is to create rules that give pilots on call more time to arrive at the airport and ease the burden of being forced to wait at the airport for call service.
United said it will continue to “work with the Airline Pilots Association on the industry-leading agreements we have on the table.”
Concerns about scheduling and workplace conditions have been at the heart of a surge in union activity since the onset of the Covid-19 crisis. Labor shortages empower unions to demand better working conditions and higher wages from employers.
Freight rail workers nearly went on strike last year over an attendance policy that required them to give 90 minutes’ notice and penalized sick leave. After 7,000 nurses in New York City went on strike in January, hospital administrators were forced to recruit more nurses, citing burnout from overburdened patients.
“Workers want some level of control over their time, and then they want better wages and benefits,” said Rebecca Givan, a professor of industrial relations at Rutgers University.
The highly unionized airline industry often engages in model bargaining for pilots, where standards for pay and working conditions set by one airline will set the standard for others. Delta Air Lines pilots approved a contract in March that, in addition to a 34% raise over four years, partially limits the airline’s ability to assign some pilots to longer trips.
At American Airlines, the pilots reached an agreement in principle on Friday after four years of negotiations. Dennis Tajer, a U.S. captain and spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, said the deal included paying at least as much as Delta’s, as well as improved scheduling.
American Airlines pilots want to limit the number of four- and five-day trips they are allotted because they don’t like being away from their families. In the past, trips were shorter, but scheduling software introduced since 2020 has increased the number of long-distance tasks. The number of hours pilots fly per month has increased from about 75 hours per month to 85 or more, Tajer said.
“It’s in line with the new standards, not just of pay, but more importantly, of work-life balance,” he said.
At United, co-pilot John Young said he was reluctant to jump into the captain’s seat because the move could disrupt his work-life balance. The move, he said, may give him more time to be on call, making it as easy as two-and-a-half hours to get to work.
“Unless you’re right next door to the airport, you’re going to be sitting there with your shoes on,” he said. “You burn people out.”