United Airlines pilots on Monday voted to accept a deal with management to avert an immediate furlough of 2,850 aviators even as a $25 billion aid package given to U.S. airlines as Covid-19 relief nears its September 30 expiration date. The letter of agreement (LOA) prevents the furlough of any of United’s 13,000 pilots until June 2021. The deal also offers a second round of early separation options for all pilots 50 years of age or older with 10 years of experience and reduces or ends the effect of temporary work reductions based on a recovery in passenger demand or other market factors.
United had planned to furlough the first 1,747 of the 2,850 pilots on October 1, the next 572 on October 30, and another 531 on November 30. The Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) negotiated a tentative agreement to avert the furloughs on September 9.
Under the deal, pilots will fly fewer hours and get paid less in return for the promise for no furloughs, while they remain in their existing aircraft type and retain their existing ranks, according to Bloomberg.
“Our members understood that in order to protect pilot jobs, we needed to approve this agreement,” said United’s ALPA unit chairman Todd Insler. “We’re spreading the existing flying among our pilot group while locking in permanent contractual gains. I am proud of our pilots for showing the unity and resolve needed in the face of uncertainty.”
The vote comes two days before the scheduled expiration of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and with it the legislation’s Payroll Support Program (PSP), which included involuntary layoff protections for employees of any airline that accepted part of a $25 billion grant package. The CARES Act also prevented airlines’ abandonment of service to communities served before they applied for their portions of the grant. Although virtually all of the U.S. major airlines have pared service to small and medium-sized cities, United hasn’t said which, if any, it would completely cut in the event Congress does not extend the CARES Act.