Pilots at Amazon’s Biggest Air Cargo Carrier Mulling Strike

Kate Nishimura
·3 min read

Pilots at Amazon’s biggest air cargo carrier are making moves to instigate a strike amid stalled contract negotiations.

Air Transport International (ATI) pilots represented by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) have requested that the National Mediation Board (NMB) step in to declare an impasse and proffer binding arbitration in their contract negotiations with the airline—the first step in pursuing a legal strike.

More from Sourcing Journal

“In November, 99.7 percent of ATI pilots voted to strike, should it be necessary to achieve the market-rate contract we have earned,” Capt. Mike Sterling, chair of the ATI ALPA Master Executive Council, said last week. “For three and half years we have been working to reach an agreement. No progress has been made over the last 18 months, and management has made it clear that they are in no hurry to finalize our contract.”

The pilots of ATI have “invested heavily in growing the airline since Amazon operations began in 2015,” Sterling added. “We delivered record reliability during the 2023 holiday season, in an overwhelming demonstration of our commitment to Amazon. While we help generate more than $500 million in revenue for our corporation, Air Transport Services Group, Inc. (ATSG), they ignore their responsibility to deliver a market-rate pilot agreement.”

Calling the lagging negotiations “totally unacceptable,” Sterling said that requesting release to strike is “an unfortunate but necessary step at this point.”

“All of our pilots are taking these negotiations very seriously—seriously enough to strike for what we deserve—even if management is not,” he added.

Before pilots can strike, the NMB has to determine that additional attempts to mediate the situation would be futile and give both parties the option to arbitrate the contract dispute. If the airline or the unionized pilots decline to arbitrate, they will enter a “cooling-off” period of 30 days, after which ALPA pilots may decide to strike or ATI can institute a lockout.

According to Sterling, ATI has seen “staggering” pilot attrition over the past two years as other pilot groups and unions across the industry successfully negotiate new contracts with better terms. ATI’s failure to do so has made its pilots look elsewhere for jobs, he said; last year, 250 pilots left the organization, amounting to 45 percent of its total pilot workforce.

In early 2022, Amazon upped its ownership stake in ATSG to 20 percent, with subsidiary cargo airline ATI making up much of its Amazon Air fleet. But following a lackluster year of sales wherein the company incurred $2.7 billion in losses, it made the decision to pull back on its relationships with airline carriers, allowing eight of the 12 leases on 767 freighters from ATI to expire during 2023 and reducing operating schedules.

Sterling has said that he would like to see ATI pilots negotiate a similar contract to pilots at Hawaiian Airlines, which agreed to take on all-cargo business for Amazon in late 2022. Also represented by ALPA, the airline last February agreed to a four-year contract with 32-percent pay raises over the duration of the agreement.

Upon the execution of the new terms in March 2023, Hawaiian Airlines pilots immediately received an average pay raise of 16.6 percent. The agreement also added a $10 million ratification bonus, boosted the company’s retirement contributions and gave pilots a $2,500 health reimbursement account.

“Our pilots have already earned a new agreement and are willing to go the distance to achieve a contract that recognizes their skills and contributions to ATI and parent-company ATSG,” Sterling said.