American Airlines Union Dispute More Disruptive Than 737 Max Grounding
Photo Credit: American Airlines maintenance technicians repair an overhead bin. The airline is in a labor dispute with its mechanics union. American Airlines
Skift Take
Big U.S. airlines have erased most of the ghosts from their past. They don't engage in many market share battles or fare wars anymore. They don't dump capacity. But they still have labor disputes with their unions. And those can be as disastrous to operations today as they were two or three decades ago.
Passengers flying American Airlines this summer may want to thank a federal judge in Texas for saving their travel plans.
On Friday, when many were preparing for Father's Day Weekend, John McBryde of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas granted American Airlines a temporary restraining order in a case the airline filed against its mechanics union. The judge ordered members of the union, the TWU-IAM Association, to stop what American suggested was a coordinated effort to pull airplanes from service to delay and cancel flights. The two sides have been in contentious negotiations on a new contract, and no resolution is imminent.
Consumers may not have been following closely, but if they plan to fly American soon, they probably should have, as this dispute has caused more operational problems in the past month than the grounding of American’s 24 Boeing 737 Max jets. With the Max not flying indefinitely, American has been canceling flights weeks or mon
