Pilots picket to bring attention to negotiations

More than 300 uniformed Hawaiian Airlines pilots, carrying signs that read “Fully Qualified, Partially Paid!” and “Mr. Dunkerley, What does Ohana mean to you?” picketed at Honolulu Airport’s interisland terminal Wednesday to bring public awareness to the slow pace of labor negotiations with the company.

The pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, said they are seeking a 45 percent increase in their overall contract value to bring them in line with market rates that pilots at other major carriers receive for flying similar aircraft. But the pilots claim that Hawaiian, despite record profits and a soaring stock price, is seeking additional concessions that the airline could not receive in its 2003-2005 bankruptcy reorganization.

“It’s not just wages we’re seeking in this contract,” said Hoon Lee, chairman of ALPA’s Hawaiian Master Executive Council. “It’s the benefits and the quality of life. Some of the concessions impact the minimum number of days we want possibly being reduced by 25 percent, and/or medical changes for both active employees and retirees.”

The pilots, walking in tight orderly circles on sidewalks outside the baggage claim area on the bottom level of the interisland terminal and outside the ticket counter on the second level, didn’t disrupt Hawaiian’s operations, according to company spokeswoman Ann Botticelli.

ALPA said it was permitted by the state to have 20 pilots walk at any one time on the bottom level and 30 to walk on the upper level. ALPA said 328, or about 95 percent of its available pilots, participated in the informational picketing, which took place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Hawaiian has about 630 pilots overall.

Hawaiian President and CEO Mark Dunkerley said in a memo to employees Wednesday that the company is likewise frustrated by the pace of negotiations and is thankful that a federal mediator is helping to close the gaps.

ALPA and the company began talks on April 1, 2015, on the pilots’ five-year contract that became amendable on Sept. 14. They have been under federal mediation since January and have additional mediation scheduled March 29 through April 1 in Washington, D.C.

“We all know that Hawaiian Airlines’ success has been driven by the hard work of every single employee in the company — pilots very much included — and we are committed to providing compensation packages for all of our work groups that are in line with our competitive position in the industry,” Dunkerley said in the memo. “That includes not only wages, but also medical, vacation and retirement benefits and work rules. Recently, our clerical and mechanical colleagues overwhelmingly ratified a contract that achieved our competitive compensation goal, and we seek no less than that for our pilots.”

But Lee said that Hawaiian is in “a state of denial or delusion to think that what they’re offering would be anywhere remotely acceptable.

“The proposals the company have offered are really cost neutral, or almost concessionary in nature,” he added. “They are things that they didn’t achieve back in bankruptcy when there was economic justification for employees to participate.”

Under Hawaiian’s current pay rates, a 12-year narrow-body captain (flying a Boeing 717) is paid $174.11 per flight hour and a 12-year wide-body captain (flying either a Boeing 767 or an Airbus 330) is paid $207.13 per flight hour. These are the top-scale rates in each category.

The Federal Aviation Administration limits commercial airline pilots to no more than 1,000 flight hours per year so those rates would work out to about $174,000 per year and $207,000 per year, respectively. A 12-year 767 captain at United Airlines, for example, makes $304 per flight hour, or $304,000 a year.

At the bottom of the scale, new-hire first officers at Hawaiian make $36 per flight hour, or up to $36,000 a year, regardless of aircraft type.

“That’s far lower than most of the major airlines,” Lee said.

Dunkerley said ALPA has not addressed “the fact that the pilot benefit package here at Hawaiian is the industry’s richest.”

“For example, Hawaiian Airlines pilots are the only ones in the U.S. aviation industry to enjoy lifetime retiree medical benefits for themselves and their spouses,” he said. “No other airline’s pilot group — or any other employee at Hawaiian Airlines for that matter — enjoys this benefit.”

ALPA said that Hawaiian has suspended the pilots’ profit-sharing agreement that has been in place for two decades.

But Dunkerley said it previously was agreed by ALPA and the company that profit sharing would be suspended beyond the amendable date of their collective bargaining agreement until a new agreement is reached.

“For ALPA to suggest that the company is unilaterally withholding profit sharing from them is false,” he said. “We have the same provision in all of our collective bargaining agreements and we have applied it fairly to each work group.”