Although the letter is designed to ratchet up the pressure on the flight attendants to settle without a strike, the mere threat is almost certain to persuade passengers to immediately begin booking flights on other airlines rather than risk travel disruptions. US Airways carries more than 6 million passengers a year out of the three airports. US Airways Express would not be directly affected by the shutdown because it is operated under contract for US Airways by separate carriers. We sincerely hope that we are not forced to take this step.
Parity is determined by an outside panel using indicators negotiated in the union contracts.
The AFA has rejected the pattern. Company officials were adamant yesterday that they would not break the contract pattern for the flight attendants on the grounds that all the other unions would then come back for more. First adopted in the early 1990s in a strike against Alaska Air, the threat of a disruptive chaos campaign has become a trademark of AFA negotiations. The company did say that in the event of a shutdown it would continue to pay all employees except the flight attendants as long as it could. Flight attendants have not had a pay raise since January 1996.