The union representing Breeze Airways pilots is suing the airline for “bad faith, anti-union conduct” amid stalled contract negotiations, pointing specifically at the airline’s chief executive David Neeleman.
The leisure operator, meanwhile, expresses apparent bewilderment at the lawsuit filed by the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA).
”We were surprised and disappointed to learn of ALPA’s filing,” Breeze says. ”The claims outlined do not reflect the reality of our negotiations with ALPA and unnecessarily distract from our shared goal: to create a safe, enjoyable and rewarding workplace for our team members.”
In the lawsuit, filed on 20 January in the US District Court in Utah, ALPA alleges that Breeze’s management team – naming Neeleman specifically – has obstructed contract negotiations with the airline’s nearly 600 pilots.
”Breeze has engaged in a pattern and practice of bad faith bargaining and illegal conduct since the day ALPA was certified as the Breeze pilots’ representative and continuing through the present,” ALPA says. ”It is motivated to block the path to a first collective bargaining agreement for the pilots, to undermine ALPA and the [Railway Labor Act] bargaining process and ultimately cause the decertification of ALPA.”
Utah-based Breeze does not discuss specifics of the lawsuit in its response to FlightGlobal but refutes that it has bargained in bad faith.
”We remain fully committed to negotiating in good faith in order to reach an agreement that benefits our pilots and supports Breeze’s long-term success,” the airline says.
Though Breeze maintains a surprised stance, friction between the airline and its pilots union has been present since pilots began organising in 2021, shortly after Breeze’s launch in May of that year.
”At that time, a group of pilots secretly formed the Breeze Pilots ALPA Organizing Committee,” the lawsuit reads.
”The pilots organised because shortly after its launch, Breeze began to experience operational challenges which caused adverse effects to pilot working conditions. By fall 2021, pilot attrition was already a serious problem.”
The document describes Neeleman’s efforts to establish a “full-fledged” company union called the Breeze Pilot Union. When it emerged that Breeze pilots had instead opted for ALPA representation, the airline Breeze filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the National Medication Board’s certification of ALPA to represent the carrier’s flight crews.
ALPA calls the initial court challenge – which was overturned by Utah’s federal district court – “baseless” and maintains that the airline’s management team has since worked to undermine the union’s role in mediations.
ALPA says that Breeze has continued fighting it “every step of the way”.
The union accuses Breeze leadership of employing tactics such as obstructing negotiations and “undermining” ALPA by “engaging in bargaining; disregarding agreements reached with ALPA; creating non-ALPA pilot committees akin to company unions and dealing directly with employees rather than through ALPA”.
The union says that Neeleman does not acknowledge the role of union representatives in meetings with pilots, and the airline does not publicly identify ALPA as its union.
”Breeze’s standard practice has been and continues to be to refuse to recognise ALPA’s existence and its role as the Breeze pilots’ exclusive bargaining representative,” ALPA’s lawsuit says.
The union also maintains that Neeleman has repeatedly floated the idea of “deadheading” Breeze pilots across the country using a single-engined Pilatus PC-12 turboprop. Industry-standard contracts typically require that companies relocate pilots using “multi-engine jet aircraft” – usually, on the carrier’s own jets.
After Breeze posted a vacancy for a PC-12 pilot, Neeleman dropped the concept of using the turboprop for deadhead flying in October, according to the lawsuit.
Through the litigation, ALPA seeks a court judgement confirming that Breeze has negotiated in bad faith, in addition to an injunction compelling Breeze to cease interfering with pilots’ organising effort. It calls for Breeze to “cease its efforts to undermine and destroy ALPA’s standing, effectiveness [and] functioning as the pilots’ chosen bargaining representative”.
ALPA’s lawsuit also seeks a court order to stop the leadership team’s “direct dealings with its pilots”, or ”company-sponsored committees”, rather than communicating through the union.
