LIAT Pilots: Not an inch

Unless a compromise is reached when the executive of the Leeward Islands Airline Pilots Association (LIALPA) meets with the Prime Ministers of the three shareholder governments of LIAT this coming Sunday, customers of the airline should brace for even more delays.{{more}}

If the LIALPA holds its ground, not even the meeting which the pilots were invited to will see a change to their stance of not going “one single inch above” what they are required to do by law.

The 10 unions representing LIAT employees will meet with the Prime Ministers of the three shareholder governments on Monday, July 27th, following the Sunday meeting.

“I am appealing to the pilots, let us be patriotic about this … are we going to mash up this thing?” Vincentian Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves asked following the shareholders’ meeting which in a large part sought to deal with the ongoing impasse between management and the pilots.

The problem stems from stalled contract negotiations and an injunction which LIAT’s management obtained last month in the Antigua and Barbuda Industrial Court barring the pilots from taking any form of strike action until their contract negotiations are completed.

President of the LIALPA Michael Blackburn told a regional news network earlier this week that the pilots will obey the injunction, but will not engage in any negotiations once it stands, as he likened management’s seeking of the injunction to someone stabbing him in his back.

The pilots have been given a July 30 date to challenge the injunction.

Blackburn said that there was a difference between being patriotic and “being outrightly stupid.”

LIAT’s management and shareholders however contend that the pilots are still engaging in types of industrial action. Dr Gonsalves, flanked by the Prime Ministers Baldwin Spencer and David Thompson, the Prime Ministers of the other shareholder countries, Antigua and Barbuda and Barbados respectively, said that the pilots are engaged in “instances of “industrial action” broadly defined.”

The shareholders’ meeting was also attended by Chairman of the LIAT Board of Directors Dr Jean Holder and acting CEO Brian Challenger. Accusing the pilots of costing the airline money that it cannot afford, LIAT’s Chairman Jean Holder said that they are “snagging”: reporting “a creek, a noise” when the plane lands at an airport, grounding the aircraft until the maintenance crew checks it out.

SEARCHLIGHT spoke to a source close to the LIALPA, who explained what is taking place. According to this source, the pilots are simply obeying the letter of the law; reporting faults in keeping with the Minimum Equipment List (MEL).

Our source said that the problem is that the maintenance crews are located in Antigua, Barbados and Trinidad, and while in the past, pilots will observe a fault, which is not major but genuine, and would continue a flight from St Vincent to Barbados, then have the fault corrected – now they are waiting for the maintenance crew to fly to St Vincent to fix the problem.

SEARCHLIGHT’s source further said that there were times, depending on the issue, that pilots would communicate with the maintenance crew and make the necessary adjustment themselves but they are not doing that anymore.In a press release Monday, July 20th, the LIALPA said that the pilots were being used as scapegoats and that the airline’s acting CEO Brian Challenger was shifting the blame to them while ignoring the problems of the lack of a “systematic, structured and effective maintenance plan in place.”

At the press conference following the shareholders’ meeting, Dr Gonsalves quoted from a letter that was sent to him by Director of the Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority, Rosemond James who rubbished suggestions that LIAT’s aircraft are in anyway unsafe.

James, writing to Gonsalves said that he has noted with “a great level of trepidation” the maintenance concerns making its rounds in the media about LIAT, saying that the information suggesting cause for concern is “at variance with the truth.”

When questioned about the protracted disputes with the pilots, Holder and Gonsalves both suggested that the pilots are playing hardball because of their advantageous position in the company, compared to other employees.

“…The pilots do not own the company, you cannot have a situation where every demand, a particular section of the workers would make, that you necessarily give in to them,” Gonsalves said.

“You could more easily replace certain other categories of staff than you can replace pilots in terms of their skills etc.. so they have very strong bargaining power….but I can assure you that wherever you go in the world and whatever airline you examine, you will find that a bit of a tension between the pilot body and the management,” Holder added.

While the press conference held after the shareholders’ meeting focussed heavily on the strife with the pilots, journalists were also told that LIAT was looking at fleet expansion (interim and long-term) and will begin operating a cargo service by October this year.

Furthermore, the LIAT leadership boasted that besides the current challenges, it is noteworthy that the airline operated an operational surplus in 2007, a slight loss in 2008, and was on course for another surplus year, before the industrial issues escalated.