Our Union: Now Here’s Your Chance
By Capt. Tim Canoll, ALPA President
In The Street’s recent headline “Airline Pilots to Trump: You Promised to Save American Jobs, Now Here’s Your Chance,” the word “chance” means opportunity. While airline pilots don’t leave anything to chance, we do seize every opportunity to advance our profession and our industry.
As President Trump recently said in remarks at Boeing, “When there is a level playing field, American workers will always win.” I could not agree more. By enforcing U.S. trade agreements and stopping foreign companies from cheating to gain an unfair advantage over U.S. airlines, the administration can defend and foster an industry that fuels the U.S. economy and sustains U.S. jobs.
Ultimately, many ALPA pilots stand to be harmed by the open door that the Obama administration left to unfair foreign competition when it failed to enforce U.S. trade agreements. The pilot group chairmen whose airlines are very much affected by this inaction joined me recently to reach out to journalists at leading news organizations.
Together, Capt. Todd Insler, United Airlines Master Executive Council chairman; Capt. Bill Bartels, Delta Air Lines Master Executive Council chairman; and I expressed our members’ affront at the prospect of our government allowing foreign airlines such as Norwegian Air International, Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Qatar Airways to benefit from U.S. air transport agreements while at the same time violating them.
Fair competition is also a cornerstone of ALPA’s recently released policy blueprint, We Keep America Flying. In its pages, ALPA provides our perspective on virtually every policy discipline: safety, security, pilot assistance, and international issues.
We Keep America Flying underscores that pilots’ training and experience matter and, as a result, so does maintaining the FAA’s current minimum first officer qualifications. We also highlight the need to ensure the safe shipment of lithium batteries and to eliminate shipments of undeclared hazardous materials.
We’ve seen from recent close calls that unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) also continue to pose a safety risk. We Keep America Flying calls for Congress to allow the FAA to regulate the use of UAS by hobbyists, and we maintain that drone registration must start at the point of purchase.
Aviation security also features prominently in our policy blueprint. ALPA continues to press for Congress to require secondary cockpit barriers, and we maintain that security standards should be equal for both passenger and all-cargo operations. Our union calls for security clearance procedures for couriers and animal handlers who travel on all-cargo flights, and we commend the Transportation Security Administration for optimizing the Federal Flight Deck Officer program.
The release of We Keep America Flying is just one of the ways that ALPA is working with the administrations, legislatures, and regulators in the United States and Canada to advance the future of air transportation.
ALPA’s ranks continue to grow even as our pilots and staff engage on Capitol Hill and Parliament Hill. In January, we proudly welcomed the pilots of Air Georgian. I look forward to every airline pilot in North America becoming part of ALPA and to their gaining representation during contract negotiations as one of the many benefits.
Led by their Master Executive Council and supported by ALPA staff, the Hawaiian Airlines pilots are in the process of voting on a five-year agreement. At the same time, other ALPA pilot groups such as those at Frontier Airlines, Mesa Airlines, and Spirit Airlines continue to fight for fair contracts. Our union is committed to helping ensure that our members share in the success of their companies.
While offering improved pay, benefits, quality of life, and career advancement has led many regional airlines to experience greater success in hiring and retaining qualified pilots, strengthening contracts is only one way ALPA pushes the industry to attract the next generation of the best and brightest to our profession.
At ALPA, we make every chance an opportunity.
