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Delta sues pilots
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December 5, 2000: 5:18 p.m. ET
Delta cuts schedule, seeks order to fill cockpits; United to talk with mechanics
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Delta Air Lines cut its flight schedule and filed a court action against its union in an effort to fill the cockpits of the nation's third largest airline.
The Delta suit, filed in federal court in Atlanta Tuesday and expected to be heard Wednesday, names the Air Line Pilots Association along with 49 individual pilots whom the airline charges are leading a concerted effort by pilots to refuse to fly overtime as a way to gain bargaining leverage in its current contract talks.
The action is just the latest attempt by a major airline to have courts force their union employees to perform their normal work during contract talks. United Airlines, the world's largest carrier, won an injunction against its mechanics on Nov. 17, after arguing they were illegally grounding planes.
United and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 141M, against whom the order was won, will return to the bargaining table Thursday for the first time since the order was granted on the same day the union goes to court to seek an end to that suit. Northwest Airlines won a similar order against its mechanics last month as well.
 The Air Line Pilots Association has repeatedly said it does not support any concerted campaign at Delta to refuse overtime flights, but that each pilots' right to not sign up for extra flights is guaranteed under the contract. It issued a statement Tuesday saying it was disappointed by the airline's decision to file suit, and questioning whether all the flight cancellations attributed to crew shortages were in fact a result of a lack of overtime flying.
"The pilots have seen these types of tactics over the past 10 years," said the union statement. "We will not let this return to a confrontational management style detract from our focus of obtaining an industry-leading contract for the Delta pilots."
Airline cutting 4-5 percent of flights
Leo Mullin, the airline's CEO, said the airline is not seeking to require mandatory overtime. He said he is not convinced by the union's public comments that it has done enough to keep pilots flying their normal complement of flights. And he said the company is convinced that the refusal to fly on overtime is a coordinated job action, and that it is hoping a lawsuit will solve the problem.
Alesia Watson, company spokeswoman, said that 24 of the 49 pilots named in the suit hold some kind position with the Air Line Pilots Association and that the company believes all 49 participated in the concerted effort to convince pilots not to fly on overtime.
The airline will start cutting between 100 to 125 of its 2,700 daily flights from its schedule in the next couple of days. It normally uses pilots flying overtime to cover between 3 and 5 percent of its schedule.
Mullin said that 375 flights were cancelled due to lack of crew members in November, and that there were 386 pilot-related cancellations in the first three days of December alone. He did not give statistics for Monday or Tuesday of this week, though. He denied the number of overtime flights is a sign that the airline does not have enough pilots.
"Statistically, you have to count on a certain amount of it," he said of overtime flying. "When you get all of a sudden a tremendous change of behavior, you can't help but be impacted."
Mullin said he's committed to having Delta pilots have the best pay in the industry, and said that negotiations so far have been productive. A union lawyer said that the offers from the company so far do not meet Mullin's promise of being the best an industry leader.
"I guess it's time for somebody to go back to him and ask him what he means by that," said Jane Langley. "We would like to have a contract sooner than later and we're very unified in what we want."
Federally-mediated talks are set to begin later this week between the pilots and Delta. The union vows it will go on strike April 1 without a contract, assuming it is allowed to do so by the National Mediation Board, which oversees labor relations in the airline industry.
Delta said little impact on revenue so far
Delta, which has annual revenue of $14.9 billion a year, has had revenue reduced only in the low tens of millions range so far, according to Mullin. He would not comment on analysts' earnings estimates of $1.08 a share for the current quarter.
Many of the affected passengers have been accommodated on other Delta flights. The reason for reducing the schedule now is so that customers can be notified well in advance of disruptions, Mullin said.
Jim Higgins, airline analyst for Credit Suisse First Boston, said there may be some lowering of earnings estimates going forward, but agreed the impact will be limited.
"By doing it (canceling flights) in a controlled ways, they should be able to reaccomodate most passengers. But it certainly isn't a positive," Higgins said. "I think it's the right thing to do, in terms of protecting themselves as much as they can. But it's not a silver bullet."
United prepares to return to table, court
As for United Airlines' labor pains, the airline agreed Tuesday to return to the bargaining table even as it prepares for two court hearings in the next eight days.
The airline will be defending a temporary restraining order it won against the 15,000 mechanics represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District 141M. The airline charged they were illegally grounding planes in order to force flight cancellations and gain leverage in bargaining on a new contract.
 UAL won the injunction the Friday before the start of the Thanksgiving holiday travel crunch, and reported that flight cancellations dropped soon after winning the order. The union denied it ever led any such coordinated job action and has been granted a hearing on its request to vacate the court order Thursday.
The company has been granted a hearing Dec. 13 at which it will detail what it says are continued violations of the order and ask the court to make the order permanent, as well as seek economic sanctions against the union.
United spokesman Joe Hopkins said the airline has been averaging 60 flight cancellations a day due to maintenance problems rather than the goal of 20. At about 3 p.m. Thursday, 48 flights already had been cancelled, he said. Still, the company said it believes it can make progress at the bargaining table in light of the current court fight.
"We intend to work very hard in the coming days toward our goal of achieving tentative agreement on an industry-leading contract for United's mechanics," said Andy Studdert, United's chief operating officer, who will lead company negotiations. "I am very hopeful that with commitment, focus and hard work on both sides these talks will be productive."
Frank Larkin, spokesman for the union, said there had been informal talks since the airline won the court order.
"It's a good sign they're going back into negotiations," Larkin said. "That's where they're going to reach an agreement, not in the courtroom."
 Larkin said direct negotiations have continued between United and IAM District 141, which represents nearly 30,000 customer service employees and ramp workers. Together, the 44,000 IAM members own about 20 percent of United's parent, UAL Corp., which is the world's largest employee-owned company.
Unlike Delta's claim of only minor disruption to revenue from its labor problems, United has seen passenger bookings and revenue plunge, resulting in losses at the airline in the third quarter. Analysts forecast those losses will continue though at least the first quarter of 2001.
United pilots won a lucrative contract in August after many refused to fly on overtime, which also grounded flights. But the airline never took legal action against the pilots, who together own a 25 percent stake in the airline.
Shares of UAL (UAL: Research, Estimates) gained $1.94 to close at $37.19 in trading Tuesday, while shares of Delta (DAL: Research, Estimates) rose $1.31 cents to $48.69. 
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