United pilots demand CEO's resignation

Delta and Northwest have cleared another big hurdle on their way to merging, as pilots at both airlines voted to approved a new post-merger contract that will take effect after the deal is completed. The approval means that after the two companies combine, Delta and Northwest won’t have to go through the kind of labor turmoil that has plagued US Airways since its merger with America West. Pilots at those two airlines never approved the merger plan beforehand, and have been mired in acrimony ever since. The Delta and Northwest pilots still have to agree on how to merge their seniority lists under a combined company, but they have said that if they can’t come to terms in negotiations, they will submit to binding arbitration.

Meanwhile, the relationship between pilots and management at United Airlines continued to deteriorate. Recently, United accused the pilots of conducting an organized sick-out, and even sued them for it. Now the pilots union at United is demanding the resignation of CEO Glenn Tilton. The United chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association has even put up a new web site (www.GlennTilton.com) that lists what it says are “the failures of Glenn Tilton’s management.” Since Tilton took the helm, the pilots allege, “United Airlines has gone from being the world’s pre-eminent airline to the bottom of nearly all performance and customer satisfaction categories.”