Although AirTran Airways employees could see pay increases and other benefits from Southwest Airlines’ proposed acquisition, labor issues could also create headwinds along the way.
“The potential benefits of this merger are virtually limitless, if the employees of both airlines are treated fairly,” Linden Hillman, chairman of the Air Line Pilots Association at AirTran, wrote in a memo to members. “We must and will protect the interests of our pilots.”
Southwest plans to take over AirTran’s operations in Atlanta and base the combined company at its headquarters in Dallas. About two-thirds of AirTran’s 8,000 employees are based at its Atlanta flight hub.
Southwest CEO Gary Kelly said last week that “people may have to change locations, people may have to change jobs.”
AirTran pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and others are likely to get higher pay at Southwest, but in the meantime their unions must work out contract issues and seniority list integration -- always a thorny topic with airline workers, since seniority affects pay, benefits and scheduling.
“There’s so much at stake in terms of their salaries,” said Barry Hirsch, a professor specializing in labor economics at Georgia State University. Pilots and flight attendants have complex contracts because of the intricacies of airline crew scheduling, he noted.
About 83 percent of Southwest employees are represented by unions, while that figure is about 50 percent at AirTran, including pilots, flight attendants and mechanics. So the deal is likely to lead to increased unionization among AirTran employees as they join Southwest’s unions.
Most unionized employees at AirTran are represented by different unions than their counterparts at Southwest, which likely means switching to new unions.
The AirTran pilots union met with the Southwest Airlines Pilots’ Association and with Southwest management last week and is developing a merger committee.
AirTran pilots have some leverage, “in that they could make things a mess if they wanted to, by creating any kind of job action,” said Robert Herbst, an independent industry analyst who runs airlinefinancials.com. But he thinks that’s unlikely.
Corey Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants at AirTran, said she hopes integration with Transport Workers Union, which represents Southwest flight attendants, “is quick and is done in the fairest way possible.”
The Teamsters union, which represents mechanics and related workers at AirTran, said it is assembling a team of legal and financial experts to protect members’ interests and “will watch this process carefully.”
AirTran pilots and flight attendants have been in contract negotiations with AirTran and plan to continue those talks, in part because the merger isn’t expected to close until next year and full integration could take two years.
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