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Flight Crews, Polar Air Reach Tentative Agreement to End Strike

Posted on: Saturday, 8 October 2005, 00:00 CDT

By Richard Richtmyer, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Oct. 4--Striking Polar Air cargo flight crews have reached a tentative agreement on a new contract, putting an end to 16 days of picketing at airports across the country.

A handful of the company's roughly 290 union pilots, first officers and flight engineers had been demonstrating at busy corners near Anchorage's international airport since walking off their jobs Sept. 16.

They packed it in Sunday after their union, the Air Line Pilots Association, and Polar Air Cargo management struck a deal.

Union members will need to approve the proposed contract before they return to work. A union spokesman said all of their votes are expected to be tallied by Wednesday evening.

Neither side would disclose specifics of the new deal. In a statement, the pilot's union said it was pleased to have "reached an agreement that increases pay and benefit contributions."

The flight crews went on strike Sept. 16 after being frustrated by a lack of progress in contract talks that had dragged on since early 2003.

Polar Air Cargo, a unit of Purchase, N.Y.-based air cargo company Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, operates a fleet of Boeing 747s that provide scheduled freight service.

From the union's standpoint, the main sticking point in the labor negotiations has been compensation, which it argued was not competitive with other 747 crews, said Ron Lovas, an Air Line Pilots Association spokesman.

For example, the average Polar Air cargo captain under the terms of the current contract makes a little over $100 an hour, compared with the $175 to $200 many other union-represented 747 pilots make flying for other companies, Lovas said.

Atlas Air leases aircraft, provides crews and insurance as well as maintenance to other airlines. Polar Air provides regularly scheduled flights between airports across the world.

Airport officials said Polar Air's planes touched down for refueling in Anchorage 449 times during the budget year that ended in June, less than a half percent of the roughly 96,000 commercial aircraft landings during that period.

During the three months that ended last June, Polar Air's revenue was $141 million, about 36 percent of Atlas' $395 million in revenue for the period, said Dan Loh, a spokesman for both airlines.

It suspended all its scheduled service flights during the strike and shifted some of the Polar Air planes into the Atlas Air rotation, Loh said.

The company has not estimated the strike's financial impact, he said.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

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AAWWV, BA, 7661,

Source: Anchorage Daily News

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