The Latest Updates on the Spirit and American Airlines Strikes

May 27, 2010 at 5:28 PM | by Omri | Comments (0)

We're pretty close to giving up on airline industry labor relations. Spirit Airlines pilots can't go on strike until June 12th, which is when their 30-day "cooling off" period ends. But in the meantime they're keeping busy by picketing against Spirit, a company they're ostensibly still working for, because the airline is opening a new route that might make a profit. That's literally their excuse, that the new LGA to DTW route might make money. So they're picketing.

Meanwhile you've got American Airlines preparing for a theoretical flight attendant strike that's many months away by asking 4,000 managers to retrain so they can do the job, as if this was some kind of sitcom: "okay so whoever loses the bet has to put on a uniform and be flight attendant for a day."

Here's an airline that's already dealing with massive employee alienation, and now they're going to ask thousands of managers to do work that's a few rungs down on the organizational ladder? Being a flight attendant is definitely more demanding than sitting at a desk as a manager, and we understand the mantra that everyone has to pitch in during difficult times and so on. But still.

Internationally you've got the ongoing British Airways strike, which is causing customers to flee the airline for EasyJet—perhaps for good. In Canada, Air Jazz pilots just voted 99-to-1 percent to strike. And labor troubles have the Wall Street Journal openly musing about the end of air travel as we know it. Add to this the fact that Air India has just up and begun to disrecognize unions out of sheer frustration, and it looks like we're in for interesting summer.

[Photo: @ LaRsNoW @ / Flickr]

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