American travelers were warned that Summer 2019 would be the worst one in ages. A record 2.8 million people were expected to fly every day, inconvenienced by the grounding of Boeing’s 737 Max and transfer of hundreds of Homeland Security officials from airport security lines to the overrun southern border.
For American Airlines, the “Summer from Hell” is even more hellish thanks to a labor dispute. Not only are executives sweating over whether they will strike a deal with their mechanics’ union, they’re also smarting from what they say was a deliberate slowdown by the protesting mechanics.
The hellishness is spilling over to American’s passengers. More than 7,500 AA flights were canceled in June alone — that’s 4%. For comparison, Delta’s rate was one-eighteenth that high, the Wall Street Journal reported.
While bad weather is one cause, American execs blame an alleged labor slowdown by mechanics. The number of aircraft out of service is up by 50% compared to past years, and things are getting worse, the airline says. So the company asked a federal judge for an injunction against the mechanics’ union.
The judge ordered the two sides in the labor dispute to hash it out themselves, setting up a meeting between lawyers for the airline and lawyers for the union. The airline’s two top lawyers didn’t make the meeting, the Journal reported. But it wasn’t a protest by the American Airlines attorneys.
Turns out their flights were canceled.
—By Timothy P. Carney
