ALL ALPA MEMBERS
November 11, 2010
Dear Members:
The recent policy decision by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to require that all persons, including pilots, be screened by Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) machines and/or highly intrusive pat-down searches is the latest change in a long line of ever-increasing security measures that unnecessarily frustrate and burden airline pilots.
Instead of merely complaining to the media about the changed procedures or writing to you with advice on the security screening options that you already know, I decided to try to change the U.S. government’s decisions. I have told our members and representatives on numerous occasions that your union’s influence in government, legislative, and regulatory matters is based upon our access to the highest levels of this government, and that access is due to ALPA’s long-term commitment to provide member expertise and dedicated professional staff to find solutions, instead of merely making media noise.
Last Thursday I contacted the White House with our concerns. On Friday evening, ALPA staff and I met with the TSA to present our members’ serious concerns with AIT screenings and pat-down frisking and, more importantly, to offer solutions to the issue. On Wednesday, TSA Administrator John Pistole called me to discuss both the concerns that ALPA has with the new screening procedures and reviewed the solutions that I had offered to the agency. Administrator Pistole committed to me that he and the TSA will work with me, our Security Committee, and ALPA staff to find a solution in the near term to the immediate concerns of ALPA pilots and in the longer term to implement crew access procedures.
Administrator Pistole informed me that the agency is fully on board with implementing CrewPASS, which is one of our Board of Directors priorities. Following the call with Pistole, I joined AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka to meet with the Speaker of the House and House leadership at the Capitol to discuss a wide variety of issues that affect workers and ALPA members including the current security dilemma that we face.
I know that each of you has the same question about CrewPASS: where is it? As you know from issues of FastRead and Air Line Pilot magazine over the past few months, we have been working with the TSA, airlines, MEC representatives, and IT vendors to promote the implementation and availability of CrewPASS. A few months ago, I wrote to each of the U.S. airline CEOs and your MECs that ALPA had received government approval for nationwide implementation of CrewPASS. I have also shared all details of ALPA’s CrewPASS efforts with APA and SWAPA, the unions that represent the American and Southwest pilots. Yet only one MEC, Alaska, has been successful to date in working with their management to have the company pay for and implement this enhanced security access system for pilots.
Let me be clear about the problem that has prevented CrewPASS from becoming a nationwide reality: it is simply who pays for the service. Your companies have so far refused to pay the very minimal annual costs (approximately $50 per pilot) to make this a reality, and there is no government funding for this program. Yet today, as many of you have recently experienced, we are facing a more distinct and urgent need for CrewPASS than ever before.
Accordingly, I have directed our Communications Department to post a Web survey tomorrow (Friday, November 12) to ask you for your input about the best way to “jump start” CrewPASS and provide this security access system for you in the very near term. Look for an announcement about that survey in Friday’s FastRead with more details.
Also, since many of you have requested more information and direction on the options that working pilots have when they are faced with airport screening by AIT, I have directed our National Security Committee to develop a comprehensive security operations bulletin with information that it has gleaned about AIT screening and pat-downs at an invitation-only TSA conference held earlier this week, at which ALPA was the only union invited to attend. Look for that bulletin not later than Friday as well.
The mark of a professional pilot is how well he or she deals with adversity under all circumstances. These are surely trying times, but I am optimistic that this present situation will be resolved in the near future. Along with members of the ALPA security team, I have been screened by AIT equipment at various airports and have endured the aggressive pat-downs that are used when AIT screening is declined or anomalies are discovered. I know exactly how many of you feel about this screening process, because I have experienced it as well and completely understand why it is so offensive.
I respect your continued professionalism as we work toward what I am confident will be a successful resolution of this issue. I will update the Board and the members this weekend with further developments.
Yours in Solidarity,
John Prater, President
