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Atlas Air pilots picket outside NASDAQ while management meets investors

ATLAS Air Worldwide Holdings (AAWW) pilots, working for its subsidiary Atlas Air, Southern Air Holdings and Polar Air Worldwide Cargo, have been picketing outside the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York's Times Square, while management met with investors.

"We hope investors will call on AAWW to do what's in the best interest of everyone, including shareholders, pilots and customers like DHL and Amazon.com, and work with us to come to a fair, industry-standard contract agreement that gives our families the stability we need," said Atlas Air pilot Asterios Houtas.

AAWW is reported to be refusing to bargain fairly with its pilots and is trying to deny pilots of basic protections like rest time between flights, reports the Aviation Tribune, of Malaga, Spain.

The AAWW pilots are also joined in solidarity by pilots from ABX, another carrier whose parent company contracts with DHL and Amazon.com. Amazon just signed an agreement with Atlas Air to double its fleet for domestic packages.

"We may fly for different carriers, but DHL is the common thread that runs through our airlines, and now, for many of us, Amazon.com is too," said ABX pilot Rick Ziebarth.

"Our airlines are leading a global race to the bottom that is hurting both the cargo industry and the logistics industry," he said.

In an effort to sidestep negotiations that had begun before the AAWW-SAI acquisition, AAWW and its airline affiliates are attempting to force the pilots to merge the now obsolete Atlas Air contract with Southern Air's concessionary contract, a contract that was negotiated during bankruptcy.

AAWW's stated objective is to merge the two contracts through binding arbitration, rather than through traditional arms-length negotiations with its pilots in accordance with the Railway Labour Act, the US federal statute that governs airline negotiations.

This push to force arbitration upon the pilots is part of an overarching strategy to suppress wages and slash quality of life provisions and pilot work protections.

Meanwhile, the pilots flying for recently-acquired Southern Air were forced to give huge wage, benefit and work rule concessions when Southern Air was in bankruptcy and in danger of liquidation.

The result is that the Southern Air pilots have continued working too many hours flying cargo around the world for very little pay and even less rest because the company forces the pilots to adhere to exhausting and dangerous flight and duty time standards to set their duty days, operating aircraft as long as 30 hours without rest.