GROUP GRIEVANCES FILED OVER SCOPE
Over the past few months, your union has scrutinized, requested additional information and sought resolution of two separate scope issues with United management. So far, we have been unable to resolve the issues, leading me to file two group grievances against the Company for what we believe to be violations of the scope provisions of our CBA. The first, filed in early June, deals with the improper sale of a B-767-200 aircraft and management’s plan to continue to prematurely reduce that fleet. The second, filed June 16, is in reaction to management’s failure to properly maintain a contractually required ratio of scheduled Continental twin-aisle block hours to scheduled United twin-aisle block hours, within a merger environment.

Once again, it seems that management is attempting to put the cart before the horse and take advantage of synergies not available prior to reaching a JCBA. And as before, we have no intention of allowing this to happen. Rather than go into a diatribe over management’s continued attempts to do an end around our contract, I will simply say that your union leadership is once again doing what is necessary to protect your contractual rights. We do so not just by filing the necessary grievances, but also by publicly exposing management’s seeming inability to honor their contractual word, through mechanisms such as the press release that was issued this morning (outlined below) and interviews with the media, which I am conducting today. We hope this will encourage management to correct these violations. Furthermore, I believe that by ALPA bringing the contractual issues surrounding the sale of the B-767-200 aircraft to light, management now has an ethical obligation to any potential buyers to make them aware of our position that the sale of these aircraft is tainted and may be subject to arbitration and a cease-and-desist order.

We have been down this road before, with the end result being an affirmative ruling of the core principals of our Scope section by an arbitrator in December 2010, as well as an order halting the use of 70-seat UAX flying with the Continental code into or out of our hubs. We will continue, in every instance, to do what is necessary to protect our contractual rights.

We did not ask for this fight, but we will do what is necessary to protect our jobs, our contract and our rights. Here is the press release issued today:

Continental Pilots Protest Additional Scope Violations

Houston, Texas, June 20, 2011—The Continental pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots Association Int’l (ALPA), have filed two group grievances against United to protest violations of scope provisions in their collective bargaining agreement applicable to a merger during the period of separate pilot contracts and operations of the two airlines, legacy Continental and legacy United. The first, filed June 2, 2011, concerns removal of B-767 aircraft from the Continental fleet (by sale). The second charge, filed June 16, 2011, is related to a reduction in the ratio of Continental to United flying required with respect to twin-aisle aircraft, specifically for the third quarter of 2011. ALPA is seeking prompt correction of these issues by the company, including a stop to any attempts at further sales of B-767 aircraft, correction to the ratio of flying performed by Continental to United, monetary damages and all other appropriate relief.

“Once again, management is seeking short cuts to the merger process and trying an end-run around our contract instead of negotiating at the table,” said Capt. Jay Pierce, chairman of the Continental pilots’ chapter of ALPA. “In the airline industry, attempts to cut corners typically lead to very bad results. Blatantly disregarding our existing contract not only runs contrary to management’s stated interest in reaching ‘fair’ resolution on a new contract, it is no way to make progress toward successfully completing the merger and securing much-anticipated benefits for passengers, shareholders and employees.”

These two incidents mark the second and third time since the merger close date in October 2010 that ALPA has been forced to fight off management attacks to the Continental pilots’ contract. In December, an arbitrator ruled in favor of ALPA and against Continental management in their attempt at circumventing scope provisions related to 70-seat jet flying.

The Continental scope provisions protect pilots’ job security, both generally and during a transaction such as a merger. The provisions reserve for Continental pilots all flying performed by or for Continental or an affiliate, while allowing exceptions for flying that can be performed under code share or by another airline, such as foreign carriers, Continental Connection and Express carriers. During the period of separate operations in a merger, the scope provisions, among other things, prohibit certain types of fleet changes and require that ratios of Continental pilots’ flying to the merger partner’s flying equal or exceed those same ratios prior to the merger.

ALPA represents over 53,000 pilots at 39 airlines in the United States and Canada, including approximately 5000 pilots at Continental Airlines.