Mexico City.- The Mexican Airline Pilots’ Union (ASPA) said that the process of renegotiating the collective bargaining agreement with Aeromexico is progressing slowly, and that for this reason, today the pilots will once again demonstrate at Terminal 2 of the Mexico City International Airport (AICM).
“There have been meetings, but practically no progress has been made. And like all negotiations, we are on hold,” said José Gerardo Alonso Torres, ASPA’s press and publicity secretary, in an interview.
The representative of the organization indicated that the demonstrations are intended to speed up the process, and that the pilots have certainty about their next contract. He added that the airline has so far shown willingness because it has attended all the meetings with the pilots, so no negotiation table has been broken.
However, he warned that there has been no progress, especially in the salary increase that they are requesting, and recalled that in the last four years the airline’s pilots have not had salary increases.
“They offered a 6 percent increase, but they have taken away 4 percent for four years. If we multiply that 4 percent by four years it would be 16 percent and the airline is only offering us 6 percent,” he said. He added that, although the pilots have offered a higher percentage (which would be in the double digits) the airline did not accept it, but did not make a counterproposal either. Alonso said that pilots worldwide have had extraordinary increases, for example, Air Canada recently granted a 20 percent increase to its pilots. “We are not asking for anything close to what the salaries for pilots have increased in other parts of the world. We are being moderate. The company does not agree with us so far, so we are stuck in that,” he added. Both the pilots and the company are reviewing not only the salary increase, but also other issues such as overtime, travel expenses, hotels, among others. Finally, he indicated that the meetings will continue in the next few days. However, he warned that both pilots and the airline must reach an agreement before October 1 to avoid a strike. “We trust that negotiations can be reached soon. We are asking for what is fair and below international expectations,” he stressed.
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