2020

Your Negotiating Committee was invited to once again resume negotiations this week. With our last session taking place before Thanksgiving of 2019, we were looking forward to getting back to the table.

As previously announced by both management and the union, Atlas Air hired Doug McKeen as a labor relations consultant and as the lead negotiator for the company. With his experience at various airlines along with his most recent role as the Senior Vice President of Labor Relations at United Airlines, we were hopeful that his career experience and fresh perspective might bring a positive change to our negotiations.

We just completed our first session of 2020 in Miami at the Jones Day law firm. Monday and Tuesday were spent bringing Doug McKeen up to speed on where negotiations left off by focusing in on the unresolved items in the open Articles currently being negotiated. On Wednesday, dialogue focused around Article 12 â Hours of Service with Thursday resulting in a supposal on Article 12 introduced by management. We would categorize their supposal as being one where they made substantive progress. In return, we spent the rest of Thursday putting together a counter-supposal that we presented late Thursday afternoon where we also made substantial movement from our previous position.

Today, management made another supposal on Article 12 with some more measured progress. Unfortunately, no Tentative Agreements were reached this week.

At Doug McKeenâs request, these discussions in negotiations were all off the record. Therefore, the methodology of exchanging supposals was used. This is meaningful in that anything discussed by either party at these meetings cannot be used in any potential future legal proceeding or arbitration. We welcomed this approach and felt that it led to a more constructive dialogue focused in on problem-solving. Overall, a more cooperative tone seems to be developing which we find to be a positive change.Â

However, we remain very concerned over managementâs continued insistence in refusing to make any substantive progress on Article 1 – Scope. The fact that management continues to insist on avoiding meaningful discussions on a topic that provides us with most basic job protections in a time when the piloting profession is in high demand leaves us uncertain as to what their future business plans are and more importantly, how our careers may or may not fit into those plans.

Our next negotiation session is scheduled for February 3rd â February 7^th back in Washington D.C.

Your Atlas Air and Southern Air Negotiating Committees