Most of Skybus' pilots want a union
Tuesday, March 11, 2008 3:04 AM
By
Marla Matzer Rose
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
The pilots for Skybus Airlines are attempting to unionize, with more than 80 percent favoring a vote by next month to join the Teamsters.
The move comes as all airlines are struggling with soaring fuel prices, and it could pose another threat to the airline's goal of keeping its costs far below industry standards. Labor and fuel are by far the largest expenses for an airline.
"If the Teamsters are certified, the way this airline is run is going to change," said aviation consultant Michael Boyd of Colorado-based Boyd Group, who has been a critic of the Skybus business model. "The next group will be the flight attendants. I think the employees are saying, 'We just can't work at these rates.' "
Skybus, which was notified late last week of the action, said in a statement that the company is surprised to be facing a "union organizing effort when the airline industry is dealing with a slowing economy and oil prices" that are nearly $108 a barrel.
"We believe that a majority of our pilots will understand that we are better served focusing on building a start-up airline in a very competitive environment than we are going down a path that for other airlines has led to contentious labor-management issues," the statement said.
The starting salary for a Skybus captain is $65,000, while a less-senior first officer makes $30,000 to start. Pilots say those amounts are as much as 50 percent below industry standards, and Skybus pilots say the airline is not offering second-year pay increases. Still, Skybus has been able to attract experienced pilots with stock options and the opportunity to be home every night, because all planes return to either Columbus or the second base of Greensboro, N.C.
Pilots at most U.S. commercial airlines are unionized through either the Air Line Pilots Association or the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. JetBlue is a notable exception, and Southwest pilots have an in-house union. Ireland's Ryanair, on which Skybus is largely based, has had a contentious history of refusing to negotiate with its pilots union.
Victoria Gray, a spokeswoman for the airline division of the Teamsters, confirmed that the union has collected more than the required number of cards from Skybus pilots to proceed. The Teamsters asks for 65 percent of eligible employees to "submit cards" indicating they want to join the union; the organization then notifies the National Mediation Board of the vote and asks the airline for its employee list.
The mediation board requires a simple majority for passage of a vote to join a union. Gray said that by this timeline, she would expect Skybus pilots to join the Teamsters Local 747 out of Houston by April.
Skybus has about 140 pilots, nearly 120 of whom are eligible to vote. In a phone interview yesterday, a Skybus pilot speaking on condition of anonymity said he was one of the more than 100 pilots who submitted cards favoring union membership.
The pilot said he still thinks the basic Skybus model is a sound one, and that the company can succeed. But he said pilots have become angered by having their work rules changed via e-mail with no direct communication and by being told that pay raises would come only in the form of profit sharing after the airline has a full year of profitability.
In its first quarter of flying, last July through September, Skybus had a loss of $16 million, according to documents filed with the Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Figures for fourth quarter 2007 are not expected to be released until May.
Extreme penny-pinching also has gotten on the pilots' nerves. In the pilots' lounge, "They took away the bottled water recently because they said it cost too much," the pilot said.
"They got us these cheap plastic containers to fill up and take on the plane, but they leaked. They admitted they made a mistake and gave us bottled water again. But to save the delivery cost, they have pilots on their off-hours go to Costco and pick up cases of water and deliver them to the airport."
