The malfunction The flight schedule program took place early Saturday morning and allowed pilots to cancel flights the airline expected to fly through the remainder of that month in order to take time off. The number of flights without one or both required pilots quickly rose above the 12,000 mark, according to the Allied Pilots Association, the pilots’ union at American, which employs about 13,000 APA members.
Although the triple pay is a one-time godsend for American pilots, the airline has also agreed to permanent double pay for pilots flying on peak days that often fall during holiday travel times.
“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with the APA and appreciate their partnership in moving quickly to a solution to take care of our pilots, our team and our customers,” the airline said in a statement.
So far this summer, the entire airline industry has had to cancel thousands of US flights due to staff shortages. Often these cancellations have increased on bank holiday weekends, including Memorial Day, Father’s Day and June 16 weekends and Independence Day holidays. There was also a flood of cancellations during the Christmas and New Year holidays last year.
The computer glitch caused its own problems for the country’s largest airline. Tracking service FlightAware showed nearly 200 American flights, or about 6% of its flight schedule, were canceled Wednesday and more than 800 flights, or about 26% of scheduled flights, were delayed.
US spokesman Matt Miller said he did not know the cause of Wednesday’s canceled and delayed flights, nor how many were caused by the scheduling error. But Dennis Tajer, an American pilot and spokesman for the union, said it was clear the problems were mainly due to the scheduling problems.
Tajer added that negotiations between American’s new CEO, Robert Isom, and pilots’ union leadership got things back to normal pretty quickly.
“They already had a system under pressure without enough pilots,” Tajer said. “This IT failure would have caused problems in July if nothing had been done. We are cautiously optimistic that Mr Isom sees the value of working with us.”
Ed Sicher, President of the APA, said in a message to members that he hopes this agreement can be a stepping stone to achieving a new worker agreement for pilots at American.
The union and the airline had been negotiating a new deal since 2019, but efforts to reach a long-term agreement have been stymied by the pandemic. The pilots continue to operate under a 2015 contract that was due to be renegotiated in 2020.