Airline workers feel the squeeze

By Lynda Arakawa
Advertiser Staff Writer

Maryanne Sullivan loves her job and the friends she made here during her 33 years at Aloha Airlines.

Aloha Airlines flight attendant Maryanne Sullivan is considering ending her 33-year career with the carrier and moving to the Mainland because of the cost-of-living crunch as a result of pay cuts. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

"I don't want it to be a poor-luck story, because I don't think it is," said Sullivan, who added that being single gives her more freedom to explore her options. "That's just the way things are right now in the industry.

"But each one of us is impacted differently. Each one is a different story."

Sullivan is among the roughly 3,700 Aloha employees who are dealing with smaller paychecks as the airline works to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Aloha, which filed for bankruptcy protection Dec. 30, said both management and unionized workers are taking 10 percent pay cuts to help the company save $60 million and come out of bankruptcy.

All employee unions have accepted new labor agreements with the company except for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers' District Lodge 142, whose members are taking imposed pay cuts at least until April.

Those cuts are on top of 10 percent pay reductions that employees accepted in January 2003 to help the company obtain a $40.5 million federal loan guarantee.

Such cost-cutting appears to have become the norm for many in the airline industry, which has been struggling with high fuel prices, competition against low-cost carriers and labor costs.

It's much different from the industry Sullivan and others remember joining years ago. Morale is reportedly low among employees, who are uncertain about the financial viability of the airline as well as their own futures.

"You're actually having more to do with less people and (working) more," Sullivan said. "So it's a situation that's not going to be pretty, especially for those of us who have had all these years in this wonderful, pleasant career. Now it's getting down and dirty, and I don't know if I want to be a part of it.

"The industry, the working conditions — it's not what the airline used to be. We've seen the best of what we're ever going to see. ... The complexion of the whole industry has changed. It's survival now. That's what I mean by down and dirty. Everyone's in survival mode."

The pay cuts make it difficult for Sullivan to continue paying the mortgage on her Makiki condominium. She has since picked up the company's early retirement forms and began checking Internet job board Monster.com. She's exploring what she can do in Hawai'i, but is also looking at housing in Seattle and Portland.

Despite some nervousness, she's excited to begin a new chapter in her life. But it would be a bittersweet change for Sullivan, who moved here from Chicago when she was 19 and loves being a flight attendant.

"Everything and everyone I know is here," she said. "I've established friendships that are invaluable to me. ... I'm very emotional about it. On the positive side, it's exciting. It's a new adventure. ... Things happen in life. You have got to make them your opportunities in life."

Others, particularly those with families, don't have the same flexibility.

Randy Gomes, an airline mechanic with Aloha for 17 years, has seen his hourly top-scale wage drop from $26.42 to $21.38. The cuts over the last two years have set mechanics' pay back to levels of around 1992 and 1993, he said.

Aloha's mechanics and inspectors twice voted down tentative agreements calling for pay cuts and other concessions, but a federal bankruptcy judge this month allowed the airline to impose the pay reduction until April 5.

"Anybody being forced to take a $5.04-an-hour pay cut, I don't care who you are, it hurts," said Gomes, a 45-year-old Hawai'i Kai resident. "And if that's what it takes to make our company survive, then we need that. We still need to work, but it's not easy."

Gomes, married with two teenage daughters, said most of his co-workers have children in school.

"Because we all have school-age children, it affects families, not just persons," he said. "My daughter's going to want to go to college in a couple years. Me taking a pay cut like this now, it's kind of tough."

"We gotta use some of our savings, and we really don't want to. We're kind of at the point where we just have to wait and see what happens. If we don't have cash, if this company folds up, I don't know what I'm going to do. I need the company to survive.

"This stuff — it just kind of wears on you. Before you fall asleep, you think about this."

Reservations agent Clareen Gaddis' voice was hoarse after working 14 straight days. She and many of her co-workers make sure to take advantage of overtime when the company offers it to collect more income, she said.

"Everybody's trying to count their pennies now," said Gaddis, a 49-year-old Kaimuki resident who has worked for Aloha for 12 years. "The prices go up, real estate taxes go up, everything goes up. And your pocketbook is shrinking."

To help boost morale, some managers and employees, including Gaddis, organize monthly lunches and post little sayings on the walls "to brighten up everybody's day." Music now plays in the office.

Still, many employees are checking the Internet and newspapers for other jobs, she said. Gaddis, a single mother of two teenage children, is thinking about pursuing a job in the medical field.

"There will always be jobs there," she said. "And I'm stressing to my children to do the same. It's not worth it to be in the airline industry anymore.

"It's sad, because we're a tourism state, and we depend on airline travel. We thought that we would always have a good-compensation job, and a lot of us here have degrees. And it's really sad that you see this industry going down. It's a really, really sad situation."

Flight attendant Sharlene Painter works 10 extra flight hours a month, but said that barely makes up for the pay cuts. The 47-year-old single mother from Kapahulu recently considered whether she could afford her share of her teenage son's Punahou School tuition, which has been increasing in the last several years.

"I sometimes think now, 'What was I thinking?' " said Painter, who jokes with some regular passengers about working for them. "At this point in my seniority, I can get selection of the workdays and the schedules that I want and the time off that I want. But I'm working harder than I ever had to for less money. More days, longer days for less money.

"If I only had five years into it I'd say, 'OK, it was a good run. I'm outta here.' But after 27 years of service ... I'm not in a position where I can just start all over somewhere else. You just basically suck it up and go forward. What else can you do? We're all in the same boat."

Painter knows husbands and wives who both work for Aloha, including one couple who are withdrawing children from private school. Some employees are moving back home with their parents, she said.

Now "extras" like take-out dinners and movie rentals are out of the question, Painter said. She's collecting and recycling bottles and cans from others to raise money to buy her son a surfboard, and they spend time at the park and the beach for their entertainment. She's also keeping an eye out for other available jobs.

"I'm pretty much in limbo," Painter said. "Who knows? I'm just being very cautious and just kind of waiting to see. I think we all are."

Aloha officials say they realize the cuts are not easy, and note that all employees — from the rank-and-file to management — are making necessary sacrifices to help the company. Aloha spokeswoman Stephanie Ackerman said the wage concessions represent a small amount of the total cost savings the company has identified.

"It doesn't nullify the fact that we know that it is difficult for people," she added. "I think we have to put it in the context of the bigger picture for our company, and the fact that we are here trying to do all that we can to preserve jobs and make our company profitable to go forward."

Ackerman pointed out that Aloha still pays for employees' medical coverage, and that nearly every airline is "going through the same pain."

"What we have talked to our employees about is the fact that this year, we have been able to identify cost reductions, and we believe that by being leaner and meaner and more competitive, (it will make) the level of profits that can come back to a profit-sharing plan that then rewards our employees."

"I personally have gone out and talked to employees," Ackerman added. "There is that real can-do attitude. The people who love coming to work because they like Aloha Airlines and believe we are a company that has been a fabric of this community for many, many years do want to do what's best for the company, because ultimately everybody benefits from it. ... Everybody wins in the end. It's just painful getting there."

Reach Lynda Arakawa at 535-2470 or larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com.