St. Louis judge moves TWA dispute over to American Airlines bankruptcy court in New York
By Terry Maxon
[email protected]
6:21 pm on March 6, 2013 | Permalink
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In another seniority battle, some ex-Trans World Airlines pilots have lost their attempt to keep their lawsuit out of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court that is hearing American Airlines’ Chapter 11 case.

U.S. District Judge John A. Ross in St. Louis ruled Monday that the lawsuit filed last May by a group of TWA pilots should be transferred to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean H. Lane in New York.

The pilots are suing the union that has represented them since American bought TWA assets back in April 2001, the Allied Pilots Association, and American, saying the APA didn’t fight to protect them in recent discussions.

After the 2001 purchase, APA adopted a seniority list integration that didn’t work to the TWA pilots’ advantage.

The 2,500 most senior AA pilots were put at the top of the combined list. Then about 1,000 TWA pilots were folded into the remaining American Airlines pilots at the ratio of one TWA pilot for about every nine American pilots hired before the merger. The last 1,250 or so TWA pilots were stapled to the bottom of the combined seniority list.

That meant that post 9/11 furloughs hit the TWA pilots very hard since they had the least seniority, and they had a lot less status for getting the airplane, schedule, vacation and other elements of their job that are based on seniority.

One protection TWA pilots had, in a contract addendum known as Supplement CC, said they were protected at their home base of St. Louis. But American now wants to close the St. Louis base, and the St. Louis pilots would be thrown into the general seniority list with a lot less relative seniority.

American and APA agreed in a new contract adopted last year that they would submit the question of what to do with the St. Louis pilots, how they will exercise their seniority and Supplement CC to binding arbitration.

The ex-TWA pilots didn’t like that idea at all.

“Without Supplement CC’s protective fence, the 650 former TWA pilots based in St. Louis would have to bid for routes against the other 8,000 American pilots,” the TWA plaintiffs said in their May filing.

“Such bidding, however, would be based on the former TWA pilots’ heavily reduced seniority in favor of the American pilots, which would cause hundreds of Captains from the former TWA group to be demoted to First Officer, and hundreds of former First Officers in the former TWA group to stand ‘on call’ for days in a row at a new base if they want to fly.”

The issue of the TWA lawsuit came up on Dec. 19 when American asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane to approve the new APA contract, which includes the Supplement CC arbitration process. As I remember, the point of APA and American Airlines was that the contract and the bankruptcy process overrides any previous agreements, whether losers in the deal like it or not.

In any case, Judge Ross in his order Monday:

– Granted American’s request to transfer the case to Lane’s court.

– Denied the TWA pilots’ request to stay any decision on the transfer.

– Denied APA’s motion to dismiss the TWA lawsuit, but did so without prejudice.

– Denied the TWA pilots’ request for a status conference of all parties before he ruled.

Lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit are pilots John Krakowski, Kevin Horner and M. Alicia Sikes.