I’m back to my theme of unintended consequences. While the Transportation Department has been approving airline alliances and pursuing a U.S.-E.U. Open Skies agreement, the airlines have been figuring out ways to game the system. Now a pilot union that once supported all these efforts has awakened to a new reality they don’t like.
In a shocking departure from past stands, last Wednesday, pilots at United Airlines asked the White House to delay any government approval of an application by United and Continental Airlines for antitrust immunity.
Tripso.com has been reporting for months that the new airline alliances allow far too much coordination on international flights that will harm competition and cost U.S. jobs. We also have reported some unintended consequences of the Open Skies agreements that now allow airlines to form new joint ventures to circumvent many national laws on both sides of the Atlantic.
The United Airlines pilot union, the Air Line Pilots Association, is seeking protections for pilots as part of any airline alliance grant that would permit the U.S. and foreign airlines to share pricing, scheduling and other information within the Star Alliance.
“We are requesting a delay or an approval with conditions to the application, union chief Steve Wallach wrote in a letter to President Barack Obama. “We are not opposed to the alliance itself. However, we are concerned that this application does not adequately address the very real threats to American workers’ jobs.”
United disputed the pilots’ contention in a statement. “This is about adding an American company into an immunised alliance that will continue to protect American jobs – to suggest otherwise is a mischaracterisation of the facts,” the company said.
Ah ha! The mantra that these alliances will create hundreds of thousands of jobs is not being countermanded by the unions — exactly the portion of the equation that should be happiest should alliances move forward, if more jobs was more than a smokescreen.
Though DOT has given the Continental/United/Lufthansa/et.al. Star Alliance the initial OK, final approval has not been issued. Throughout the process the E.U. regulatory bodies have been less than happy with this alliance and the increased powers granted airlines while flying internationally. Members of the Judiciary Committee have urged the DOT to wait until they have time to complete a full antitrust investigation. (A pledge with which DOT concurred.)
Now with an inside union opposed to these alliances, perhaps the DOT will take a deep breath and reexamine airline alliances. Even better, a new bill introduced by James Oberstar (D-Minn.) and attached to the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2009 will be passed forcing a full review of airline alliances and their effects on the airline economic universe and its consumers.
