American Airlines is nearing a contract agreement with pilots after more than two years of negotiations, although most union members have not seen the deal.
A memo from the Allied Pilots Association to its members said the Fort Worth-based carrier reached an agreement with the union’s bargaining team.
That means the bargaining unit has agreed to a deal that it thinks the broader union leadership would accept and that the the entire membership of 15,000 pilots might vote in favor of.
The union’s leadership will review the deal starting on Monday and could take a few days to review it.
Allied Pilots Association spokesman Dennis Tajer declined to say what was in the agreement and said the union’s board of directors would need to approve it and ready it for members before details could be shared.
But even a potential deal is a breakthrough after more than three years of bargaining that was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pilots are looking not only for raises of 20% or more but for scheduling policy changes after more than a year of elevated cancellation and delay rates. The Allied Pilots Association says flight disruptions have been hard on pilots because delays and cancellations also mean unpredictable reassignments that interfere with personal lives.
American executives including CEO Robert Isom have zeroed in on reliability, but pilots want structural changes to how pilots are assigned and put on reserve.
American is one of several airlines negotiating new contracts with pilots. United Airlines has released a tentative agreement with its pilots through the Air Line Pilots Association, and Alaska Airlines recently came to a deal with its pilots.
American’s flight attendants are also in negotiations for a new contract.
“We want management to know that it’s about time that our benefits our pay our work rules improve,” Allied Pilots Association president Ed Sicher said in September.
Pilots say that their last two deals were negotiated during bankruptcy conditions after the company’s 2011 reorganization filing and subsequent merger with US Airways.
Pilots and airlines carefully watch deals being crafted by other carriers, and deals often include clauses that match salaries in other contracts.
Isom has acknowledged that a deal may raise costs in an environment where airfares are already high.
“Certainly anything that we do with our pilots or flight attendants or any of the other team members that we’re currently negotiating with, we do we with the mind to make sure that we take care of our team, and we take care of that company as well,” Isom said. “When we think about the deals that we have going, we have to make sure that they fit with an economic perspective of making money.”
Pilots are looking for a two-year contract so that they could return to bargaining in 24 months when the industry has gained more stability coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
