Here in Seattle, maybe in other towns they service, Alaska Airlines dumped the unionised flightline workers for a non-union sub-contractor a few months back. The wailing and gnashing of teeth was tremendous, though hardly worth talking about here.
And then, as if by magic, anytime anything happened to an Alaska Airlines plane that could be blamed on the non-union sub-contractor employees, it made the top of the local news cycle: Front Page of the papers, Lead story on the TV.
There was the baggage cart driver who bumped the donkey into a plane, causing a flight delay and the guy who did the same thing but didn’t tell anyone causing a loss of pressure shortly after take off.
Horrible and stupid mistakes, yes; but now, months later, we are finding out that Alaska’s non-union, sub-contracted employees aren’t the only ones who make mistakes.
Since January 2003, 30 planes have been hit on the ground, nearly all of them by a worker driving a vehicle or moving a passenger jetway, or by a pilot steering another plane.
Seven people have been sent to the hospital, and on 15 occasions workers have left the scene of an incident without reporting it. In all, the airport has tracked 175 incidents on the ramps, the areas where planes are loaded and unloaded.
The actual number could be much higher, but there’s no way to know because the federal government requires reports only when someone is injured or when a plane sustains substantial damage or could be unsafe to fly.
175 incidents, huh? Before the non-union folks came in and by current union employees, some of whom don’t report their accidents?
I wonder if the local reporters knew about this before they started relaying every sob-story about Alaska? I’m sure they must have. 175 incidents is a large number to try and hide.
So why weren’t we told about them?
Because Seattle is a strong union town. You can’t drive through the south end industrial area without seeing dozens of cars with stickers revealing the owners union affiliation.
I’m sure there’ll be a backlash about the Times letting this tale loose.
Nice rant, AK, but it misses the target by a contry mile.
My credentials: For two years, I was a Ground Safety Officer in a B-52 bomber squadron, in addition to my primary duty as an aircraft navigator in those planes.
A Strategic Air Command base used to be a very busy place, with the flightline filled with heavy jet aircraft and all sorts of ground equipment to service them. It was my job as GSO to see that aircrew/aircraft interactions didn’t result in damaged aircraft or nuke accidents.
Such assurance is gained, and ONLY gained by having properly-trained, qualified AND CERTIFIED, EXPERIENCED people on the flightline, and no one else. That is the ONE safety concept that is proven, time and time again, to be violated in the investigation of almost every flightline incident or accident.
When AAL fired all the union baggage handlers, and replaced them with non-union workers, the result was an immediate lowering of the flightline worker experience level. Those inexperienced workers are GUARANTEED to have more accidents and incidents. You know this to be true in the waste hauling business.
As the airline unions fail, one by one, the wage scale is not the only thing falling with them. The safety level of crews and passengers falls, too.
The target was the myth that only union employees could be ‘safe enough’ to work a flight line.
I hit the X ring on that, RD.