AirTran Airways' pilots, part of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), announced that they have voted to authorize their union to call a strike if federal mediation for a new contract through the National Mediation Board (NMB) fails, just as AirTran's stockholders met in downtown Milwaukee on May 18.
According to the ALPA press release, 95.7 percent of AirTran's pilots voted in favor of authorizing a strike.
But the vote in favor of the strike does not mean AirTran's pilots will strike soon, though it may put pressure on management to reach a deal sooner.
Under the Railway Labor Act (RLA), which applies to airline pilots, the NMB would have to release AirTran's management and pilots from federal mediation first. The RLA became a federal law in 1926.
AirTran's pilots, who have been in contract talks since 2005, are claiming that their pay and benefits with the discount airline are below the industry standards.
Local readers of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper have commented in diverse reactions to the paper's story reporting the affirmative strike authorization vote and the possibility of a pilots strike grounding or slowing AirTran, MKE's second busiest airline (after Republic Airways' Frontier/Midwest combination).
AirTran pilots demonstrated outside the airline's shareholders meeting at the Pfister Hotel, according to a report by TMJ4 Milwaukee.
The Milwaukee edition of the Business Journal reported that journalists were blocked from AirTran's annual stockholders meeting in an unusual move, and that AirTran spokesperson Chris White stated "We’re still months away from any potential work stoppage."
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