2021

Negotiating Committee Update

February 12, 2021

As you have sadly grown accustomed to reading, management made little movement in this final week of negotiations. Further, we regret to inform you that, after spending the last five years attempting to engage in constructive dialogue with management to reach the industry standard contract you deserve, we are left with a significant portion of the contract remaining unresolved. Throughout the years, we made countless attempts at problem solving with new and creative ways of improving the working conditions and pay for our pilot group. Unfortunately, management never approached this process in a similar fashion, but instead chose a path of resistance, delay and obstruction.

From the onset of negotiations, we have always approached issues from an analytical standpoint where we benchmarked our proposals to the industry. The goal we set out to achieve was simply to gain the pay and benefits currently enjoyed by other pilot groups — never anything more, never anything less. Despite our reasonable objective, we find ourselves today in the position where management has chosen a path of hiding behind the arbitrator rather than leading the ship by taking the actions needed to recognize the daily sacrifices this pilot group makes in building and helping this airline operate efficiently.

Town Hall and Instructor Meetings, Employee Exchanges, and Ground School sessions have often been filled with statements made by management about ‘wanting to give you the contract you deserve’ along with claims like ‘we need to pay you more’ or ‘we plan to give you an industry competitive contract.’ The reality is that they apparently never meant any of it as their actions have spoken much louder than their words. We will never forget such behavior.

Moving forward, final arbitration proposals will be submitted on Monday, February 15^th. Preparations are already underway for arbitration, in which we will be supporting our excellent attorneys and subject matter experts. Dana Eischen has been selected as the arbitrator to handle our dispute and he will meet with both parties to hear and determine all outstanding unresolved issues from March 17^th through March 31^st (excluding weekends). We will report back to you as arbitration transpires.

It has been our greatest honor to serve this pilot group throughout these challenging times. We will forever be grateful for your unwavering support.

Sincerely,

Your Negotiating Committee

Chris Knox, Doug Malcolm, Heath Martin, Keith Carbine, Lionel Largmann, and Yngve Paulsen