Pilots strike suddenly: internal flights grounded

Press, 9 April 1979, Page 1

Pilots strike suddenly: internal flights grounded

Air New Zealand's domestic pilots went on strike without notice from midnight last night, saying their morale was so low that they could not guarantee the safety of flights until their claim for equal promotion rights with international pilots was settled.

The open-ended strike caught the airline by surprise because the legal requirement of 14 days notice was not met. The strike means that all Air New Zealand domestic flights will be grounded indefinitely. International flights are not affected. An Air New Zealand spokesman said last evening that about 2000 passengers were booked to leave Christchurch Airport today on 31 domestic flights. The situation was similar at other airports. Announcing the strike, the chairman of the N.A.C. pilots’ council of the Airline Pilots’ Association (Captain R. B. McNair) said that since the merger of the National Airways Corporation and Air New Zealand more than a year ago, the airline had known that a “significant degradation in flight safety” could occur until the seniority problem was resolved. “It is the opinion of the N.A.C. council that morale among its pilots is now so low as to be approaching a level not consistent with the level of safety expected by the travelling public,” he said. “The former N.A.C. pilots are therefore taking this action without the usual 14 days notice required for such a stoppage as the risk involved in such a period is not war-

ranted and not in the public interest.” The pilots claim equal promotion rights based on seniority, allowing them to progress from domestic 40-seater Friendship aircraft to wide-bodied DC 10s on international flights. The pilots gave 14 days notice of a strike last Christmas over the same issue but called off that action and agreed to put their case to a specially formed Aircrew Industrial Tribunal. Its chairman (Chief Judge R. D. Jamieson) said in a reserved decision last month that the matter was so complex that the tribunal felt it should be heard by an arbitration panel of overseas experts whose decision should be final. Captain J. Dickinson, secretary of the Airline Pilots’ Assocation, covering both the domestic and international pilots, said then that he hoped strike action could be avoided and that it was up to Air New Zealand to provide a formula for a combined seniority list. Captain McNair said that usual overseas practice was to combine seniority lists before any actual merger of airlines. An example was the proposed merger of Western Airlines and Continental Airlines: the seniority lists had already been combined although the

United States Government had not yet approved the merger. Since the merger between N.A.C. and Air New Zealand, the seniority issue had led to ill-feeling and occasional bitter arguements between the two groups of pilots. “Under such circumstances critical loss of pilot performance can occur, either in handling an emergency caused by technical failure or in recogn.sing potential hazards arising from deteriorating or adverse weather conditions,” said Captain McNair. The general manager of Mount Cook Airlines (Mr M. L. Corner) said that his airline could offer only limited alternative services to stranded Air New Zealand passengers. Two of Mount Cook’s Boeing 748 s were fully committed to scheduled flights, one was being sent to Britain on a five-month charter, and the fourth was on stand-by. The manager of the Canterbury Aero Club (Mr J. J. Goddard) said that bookings for any of the club’s aircraft would be taken on a first-come, first served basis. The club could handle a maximum of 24 passengers at any one time. The Minister of Civil Aviation (Mr McLachlan) said last evening that he had not been formally told of the strike and that he could not comment until he had been so informed. The Minister of Labour (Mr Bolger) said he planned no action until this morning. He also had not been formally told of the strike. He was concerned about the lack of strike notice but would “not like to take it too far at this stage.” Late last night the airline said that it would “take action” against pilots who refused to carry out their duties in support of what it called a wildcat strike.