Magazine Honors AA-Union Cooperation

By Bloomberg, AP and Staff Reports

American Airlines and the Transport Workers Union, which represents more than 6,000 aircraft mechanics at American’s Maintenance & Engineering Center at Tulsa International Airport, have been honored by Air Transport World.

A monthly magazine that covers the global airline industry, Air Transport World has named American and the TWU as winners of its Labor Management Relations Award. It is only the sixth time in 23 years that the magazine has presented the award.

Air Transport World’s editors praised the three-year-old company- union effort to avoid outsourcing aircraft maintenance work, maintaining American’s own aircraft and securing lucrative third- party contracts.

“American Airlines and the Transport Workers Union are doing things differently and ATW believes their effort deserves special recognition,” the magazine’s editors wrote. “Under Chairman and CEO Gerard Arpey, American launched the Working Together initiative to change the traditional labor/management relationship from confrontation to collaboration by creating an atmosphere of trust and candor in which all the stakeholders can come together as business partners sharing common goals, rather than as competing interests.”

(c) 2007 Tulsa World. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.