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(c) Elliott Publishing.

Handling Chaos
Cheap Charlie · May 22, 2000

There is significant labor unrest at US Airways between the company and its flight attendants. If you live on the East Coast, this labor dispute will affect you more than in other areas. It will affect you even if you normally fly other airlines.

Start taking action now to work around potential problems with flight cancellations and delays. If you have a vacation or important meeting coming up from March 25 to April 9 and hold reservations on US Airways, make alternative plans. Today.

First, here is a bit of background. The flight attendants have been flying for three years while negotiating a new contract. Every other union at US Airways has agreed to a new contract. Flight attendants remain unhappy with theirs.

Recently, the National Mediation Board declared the negotiations at an impasse and suggested that the parties submit to binding arbitration. The flight attendant union refused.

US Airways and the union are now in the midst of a "cooling off" period. But no one seems to be cooling off, and a "work disruption action" is looming. Flight attendants call it CHAOS -- Create Havoc Around Our System. The plans are amazingly detailed.

US Airways has said it will shut down the company rather than face these random acts of disruption.

Where does this leave the passengers, who ultimately pay all the bills for both management and labor? In this case, the US Airways flight attendants don't seem to care. Go to their Web site. They appear intent on wreaking CHAOS -- the term is even trademarked. You can almost hear, "Damn the passengers, full havoc ahead!"

I don't know enough to take sides, but I do know that passengers should duck for cover.

The bottom line is that passengers have to look out for themselves. The "cooling off" period ends at midnight on March 25th. That's when the real trouble is scheduled to begin.

A US Airways spokesman said US Airways will fully refund any tickets currently held by passengers for travel between March 25th and April 9th. This is, to my knowledge, unprecedented. Management is expecting the worse and putting its money where its negotiations are.

US Airways is giving passengers a way out of this uncertainty. Take advantage of it. If you wait until the last minute, seats will be gone, airline check-in counters will be jammed, and the phone waits will be longer than ever. Take action right away!

Book a flight on another airline now. You still have time to get some advanced purchase fares. Take the US Airways offer. Get your money back. Don't let yourself be held hostage to labor negotiations that seem to be going downhill.

Charlie Leocha is the Boston-based author of Travel Rights: Know the Rules of the Road and the Air Before You Go. Cheap Charlie appears every Monday on this site. E-mail him at charlie@ticked.com or access his Web site.