Strikes are a regular occurrence in Europe, as employees withhold their labour to fight for better pay and conditions.
20.12.2023 - 00:57 / skift.com / Meghna Maharishi
Southwest Airlines and its pilots’ union reached a preliminary labor agreement on Monday, ending three-and-a-half years of tense negotiations.
The five-year contract is worth $12 billion and is one of the largest contracts, giving pilots significant raises, according to CNBC. United Airlines’ contract with its pilots union was worth $10 billion; Delta Air Lines was $7 billion; and American Airlines was $9.6 billion.
“We are finally at a place where we think the value of our pilots and their productivity is being realized,” Southwest Airlines Pilots Association President Captain Casey Murray said in a statement. “Our pilots and Southwest Airlines customers deserve security and confidence in our future and we believe that this contract achieves that.”
Southwest is the last of the Big Four airlines to reach a deal with its pilots union.
“We are pleased to reach an agreement in principle with the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association for Southwest’s nearly 11,000 Pilots,” Southwest said in a statement.
Now the contract will be evaluated by SWAPA’s 25-member board of directors. Once the board okays the contract, it will then be voted on by the union’s 11,000 members.
American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines reached record agreements with their respective pilots’ unions earlier in the year. The multi-billion dollar contracts gave pilots a hefty bump in pay, following years of sluggish negotiations caused by the pandemic.
Pilots and flight attendants have been advocating for better pay and working conditions as the industry has been squeezed by labor shortages coming out of the pandemic.
The agreement comes as the labor movement in the U.S. has experienced a banner year as different industries — ranging from auto manufacturers and actors and screenwriters — have successfully scored major deals to improve pay and working conditions.
Southwest still has to reach an agreement with its flight attendants union, which recently rejected a preliminary deal. The flight attendants union plans to revote on the agreement due to technical issues with its voting system.
Strikes are a regular occurrence in Europe, as employees withhold their labour to fight for better pay and conditions.
Travel and hospitality professionals in Europe must remain vigilant as strikes continue to disrupt the industry.
Index ranks best workplaces in America for employees to advance their careers.
As midnight approaches, dark groups huddle on the freezing slope of one of the seven hills overlooking the soft yellow lights of the city of Edinburgh.
Southwest Airlines experienced an epic meltdown last holiday season due to its outdated technology. Though it avoided any problems this year, there is still one issue it can’t avoid.
A historic year of strikes has been roiling across hotels in one of the biggest travel markets in the US. Starting in July, thousands of Los Angeles-based hotel employees, including cooks, housekeepers, dishwashers, servers, bellhops, and front desk agents, walked off the job to protest their current working conditions, according to Unite Here Local 11, the union that represents most hospitality workers in Los Angeles.
Southwest Airlines and its pilots union have reached a tentative deal on a new, five-year labor contract that would raise wages and increase retirement benefits.
Rail travel in Germany has been plagued by strikes this year and the industrial action is set to continue in 2024.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the United States has watched at least eight commercial airline brands disappear in a series of mergers in the industry.
Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, December 19. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.
Southwest Airlines canceled 16,900 flights and stranded more than 2 million fliers between December 2022 and early January 2023, as operations took a nosedive amid severe winter storms that disrupted holiday air travel across much of the United States last year. But while other major U.S. carriers recovered from the weather-fueled delays and cancellations, Southwest struggled to normalize operations and continued to cancel flights in the days following Christmas 2022. Now, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is making it very clear that that level of failed service comes with serious consequences.
Southwest Airlines will be fined $140 million for violating customer protection laws during its 2022 holiday travel operations failure, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced Monday morning.