Hawaiian pilots lament plight

By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer

The union representing Hawaiian Airlines pilots needs to fight harder against the company's cost-cutting measures that affect the pilots' pensions and home bases, several pilots said.

Hawaiian Airlines president and chief operating officer Mark Dunkerley, on the tarmac at the Honolulu airport, says his airline is not targeting pilots in its cost-cutting efforts. Dunkerley said "we're looking at ... every labor contract." Advertiser library photo • Feb. 27, 2003

Hawaiian's bankruptcy trustee, Josh Gotbaum, asked the federal bankruptcy court last month to waive $45 million the airline was supposed to pay into the pilots' pension fund. Then, last week Hawaiian said it will close pilot bases in Los Angeles and San Francisco, meaning 40 to 45 pilots may have to relocate.

"The company has declared war against our pilot group and they're looking for ways to hammer the pilots," said Hawaiian Airlines Capt. John Von Zedtwitz. As a recent union official himself, Von Zedtwitz said he is angry about the lack of a response by the Air Line Pilots Association to Hawaiian's plan.

The pilots' attitudes represent the first internal challenges for a new union leadership in Honolulu.

Jim Giddings took over as chairman of the Master Executive Council of Hawaiian Airlines pilots only three weeks ago. His predecessor, Ron Ho'opai, resigned halfway through his two-year term that included Hawaiian's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in March. Giddings and Ho'opai did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

But John Mazor, spokesman for the Air Line Pilots Association in Washington, D.C., said: "Any new local chairman has a difficult learning curve. However, at Hawaiian, the new chairman has walked into a buzz saw of problems with bankruptcy, the pension fund, base closings and the fallout from the airline's financial condition. He's had very little time to learn not just the administrative responsibilities of his position, but you've got the Railway Labor Act — the law that governs airlines — and pension law and bankruptcy law. The only thing I can think of that's more complicated than that is the IRS code."

Giddings is receiving advice from union consultants about the pension-fund and base-closure issues while he's also learning a new job, Mazor said.

Mazor said the union leadership was looking at options for dealing with Gotbaum's latest proposals.

"The local leadership has initiated the process for taking specific actions in response to recent developments at the airline," Mazor said.

Peterson, a 767 pilot with 17 years experience at Hawaiian, said she sympathizes with the new tenure of the union leadership. But she feels her union coming apart under the moves by Gotbaum.

"We're becoming fractured," said Peterson. "It's the old thing of divide and conquer. ... They can get away with a lot more, like not funding our retirement."

The pilots who spoke to The Advertiser believe they've been targeted as a group because they are the highest-paid unionized employees and — Von Zedtwitz said — "we are the most vocal, and we provide the most visible authority to challenge what the company tries to do."

Mark Dunkerley, Hawaiian's president and chief operating officer, said Hawaiian has not targeted pilots.

"We will be looking at all of our practices," Dunkerley said. "It is clear that Hawaiian Airlines, having made profits in one year in the last 10, needs to change its cost base. In doing so, we're looking at every contract, every labor contract."

The pilots are the only group with a "defined pension plan," Dunkerley said. And the cost of continuing to fund it jeopardizes the future of the company, he said.

As Hawaiian spokesman Keoni Wagner said, "It isn't really a cost-saving move. ... It's a matter of preserving the company."

And the decision to close the pilots' bases, Dunkerley said, was made after consulting with union officials and while considering the effects on pilots.

"We are fully aware that this will have an impact on the quality of life of some of our pilots domiciled on the West Coast," Dunkerley said. "It is therefore not a step that we have taken lightly."

But that doesn't ease Peterson's concerns. She lives with her two children and husband in Texas and commutes to a Los Angeles "crash pad," where she waits for her flights.

Closing the Los Angeles pilot base would force Peterson to decide whether to move near the Seattle or Honolulu bases or continue to live in Texas.

"My family would be totally disrupted," she said. "I would never get home."

Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8085.

Correction: Hawaiian Airlines officials decided to close pilots' bases in Los Angeles and San Francisco after consulting with union officials and while considering the effects on pilots, said Mark Dunkerley, the carrier's president and chief operating officer. A previous version of this story had different information.