On the Leading Edge of Pilot Well-Being

By Capt. Jason Ambrosi, ALPA President

Like all workers, airline pilots place significant importance on their ability to provide and care for themselves and those who depend on them. An enormous number of factors influence their quality of life, and ALPA is working on the leading edge of identifying new ways our union, as well as government and industry, can promote their well-being.

The value of unionism comes through loud and clear in ALPA’s work to help airline pilots care for themselves and their families. Through our unity, ALPA draws on every available asset to ensure that pilots can take care of themselves and others while fulfilling their essential role in an extraordinarily safe industry.

With the dedicated engagement of ALPA pilots, many of whom are highlighted in this issue’s 2023 ALPA-PAC Roll of Distinction (see page 31), our union speaks with one voice in the halls of government as we pursue federal policy in support of pilots’ well-being. A decade ago, ALPA successfully urged Congress to modify the Family and Medical Leave Act so that its benefits applied to pilots.

Today, our union has insisted that the FAA reauthorization promotes a healthy quality of life for airline pilots. As state residents, airline pilots deserve the same access as other workers to state and local government sick leave and other employee benefits. Despite airlines’ attempts to profit at the expense of labor, ALPA has kept language to exclude airline pilots from state labor laws out of the current FAA reauthorization—and we’ll continue the fight as the bill moves through the legislative process. We’ve also turned back airlines’ efforts in California and Minnesota state governments to use state laws to erode pilot-in-command authority and deny pilots state sick and family leave.

Unfortunately, with similar antilabor activities happening in Virginia and elsewhere, it’s clear that state and provincial governments are a key battleground for protecting pilots’ labor rights. In response, our union is providing Association-level support for state-level AFL-CIO membership. In the same way, ALPA’s Canada Board is affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress, which represents more than three million workers and operates at both the federal and provincial levels.

In addition, ALPA is reinforcing our position as a global labor leader. Whether the issue is workers’ rights or an airline manufacturer’s assertion that airplanes can be flown with “just one pilot,” we know that if bad things happen to pilots elsewhere on the globe, the problem is likely to arrive at our doorstep in the United States and Canada. In this context, ALPA has reestablished our membership in the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), which represents airline employees worldwide. Both ALPA and ALPA Canada have seats at ITF, and this relationship is central to achieving our union’s international policy goals at the International Labor Organization.

ALPA’s “stronger together” attitude is also helping us drive home our expectation that pilot contracts will be fully enforced, including in areas that affect pilots’ quality of life. For example, ALPA pilots are coordinating closely on fatigue and scheduling through events like ALPA’s Cargo Symposium and Fatigue Management Seminar. These opportunities and others like them, such as our first-ever Preferential Bidding System Workshop, help ALPA pilot groups make pilot schedules less fatiguing and more supportive of work-life balance.

In keeping with the direction in ALPA’s strategic plan to support the physical and emotional well-being of our members, our union is also building on its decades-long history of promoting pilot mental health. Through ALPA’s recent pilot mental-health symposium, the Aviation Medical Advisory Service for our U.S. members and aeromedical resources for Canadian members, and our Family Awareness Working Group’s life-event checklists, we’re contributing to—and leading—an industrywide effort.

We also understand that ensuring pilots’ well-being is critical to attracting the next generation. During the 2024 Leadership Training Conference, the new leaders in attendance quickly recognized how our union has benefited from extraordinary leaders over its nine decades. Our union’s leaders often cite ALPA’s focus on work-life and family-life balance as critical to the current and future appeal of the profession.

Experts predict that more people will fly on the world’s airlines in 2024 than ever before. At the same time, the industry must work together to ensure the safe integration of all flight operation, including commercial space vehicles that launch and reenter the most complex shared airspace in history.

At an extraordinary time of increasing complexity in the air transportation system, a team of qualified, experienced, and rested pilots on every flight deck is essential—and so is ensuring their well-being.