ualjoe

Dear family and friends,

My union, ALPA, is fighting a battle to prevent Norwegian Air International to start operations between the U.S. and Europe. We are not against fair competition on these routes, but NAI is proposing a “flag of convenience” operation with an Irish operating certificate (even though there will be no flights to or from Ireland) and crews based in Thailand. If the U.S. government grants approval to this operation, the U.S. airline industry will go the way of the maritime industry, which is now down to 10,000 jobs in the U.S. because all the ships are now operated by shell companies registered in places such as Liberia.

Last week ALPA’s advocacy efforts resulted in a significant vote in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Westmoreland-DeFazio Amendment demands that DOT follow U.S. law and labor provisions of the U.S.-EU Open Skies Agreement (Article 17 bis). This amendment was included in the House version of the FY 2015 Transportation appropriations bill which sets spending priorities for federal transportation programs. The Westmoreland-DeFazio amendment passed unanimously. You can read the amendment and the floor debate in the Congressional Record (scroll down to page H5175 at 2200 hrs).

This week, the U.S. Senate will begin consideration of the FY 2015 Transportation Appropriations bill (S. 2438). Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) will offer an amendment similar to the Westmoreland-DeFazio amendment which passed in the House. ALPA is asking everyone to contact their senators to ask them to vote for the Schatz amendment.

Here is a link that allows you to send an email to your senators:

Alpa > ALPA Dept Info Pages > Departments > Government Affairs Department > POPVOX Deny NAI

If you have any questions, please let me know, and I’ll do my best to answer them.

Thanks very much for your help, and please forward this email to everyone you know.

shiznit

I think we are actually down to around 2,700 US citizens employed in the US maritime industry.

Nice letter overall.

OnCenterline

I read an interesting article recently that did an analysis of the ALPA arguments against NAI. Now, before I go any further, in the interest of full disclosure, I've been a dues-paying member for the last 17 years, save being on probation for the last 12 months. I absolutely can NOT stand ALPA, and if I could vote them off the property of my current legacy carrier, I'd do it yesterday. In fact, if the president--any of the past 4 presidents of ALPA--was on fire, I'd douse the fire in gasoline. Because of my total lack of faith and trust, I will not give a dime to the PAC.

The story in question broke down the ALPA argument on two fronts: one was safety, and one was the jobs issue. Essentially, it called ALPA's bluff on the safety argument against NAI (that is to say, that there is no argument to be made, that ALPA is just blowing smoke and making statements not supported by facts or data about how unsafe NAI might be), but totally backed ALPA up on the issue of jobs.

I do think outfits like NAI are a threat, and I am happy to see Congress address this. Now, if we could get Ex-Im issues taken care of, we'd get somewhere. (Further, ALPA needs to work in concert with various FA unions and other work groups that might be affected by the NAI's of the world.)

However, the one area where U.S. carriers do take a hit is in service. Companies like Emirates, Thai, Qatar and others may indeed get preferential financing, but that matters not a whit to the passengers. People flock to those carriers because the level of service is unparalleled. Of course, in the U.S., we can no longer do some of the things that these other carriers are allowed to do...

Hopefully, NAI will fade away, but I suspect that this was just a shot across the bow.