The Allied Pilots Association (APA) is the

labor union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

representing

American Airlines American Airlines is a major airlines of the United States, major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the world when measured ...

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

s. APA was founded in 1963 by a group of American Airlines pilots who broke away from the

Air Line Pilots Association The Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) is the largest pilot union in the world, representing more than 59,000 pilots from 35 U.S. and Canadian airlines. ALPA was founded on 27 July 1931 and is a member of the AFL-CIO and the Canad ...

(ALPA). The five founding pilots of APA, Nick O'Connell, Paul Atkins, Bob Guba, Joe Garvey, and Dick Lyons, were expelled for life from ALPA. The first headquarters was located in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

before it moved to

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

History

In 2001, on its pilots' behalf, APA filed a lawsuit against American Airlines. The airline attempted to circumvent

scope clause A scope clause is part of a contract between a major airline and the trade union of its pilots that limit the number and size of aircraft that may be flown by the airline's regional airline affiliate. The goal is to protect the union pilots' job ...

that placed limits on regional flying. It did so by altering the AmericanConnection IATA code to ''AX'' for flights operated by

Chautauqua Chautauqua ( ) was an adult education and social movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua bro ...

and Trans States. The issue was settled in 2007 when a federal arbitrator ordered American to pay $23 million to APA members for violating the scope clause. The merger of American and

US Airways US Airways (formerly USAir) was a major United States airline that operated from 1937 until its merger with American Airlines in 2015. It was originally founded in History of aviation in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh as a mail delivery airline called ...

resulted in the carriers' pilot labor organizations to be combined. In 2014, USAPA merged into the much larger APA. At the time, USAPA had been under a permanent federal injunction but asked the judge to have the injunction lifted, as the merger brought an industry standard contract. The protagonist organization that opposed USAPA, known as America West Airlines Pilots Protective Alliance (AWAPPA), was dissolved.

References

External links

American Pilots Act to Form New Union
// ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'', April 15, 1963, v. 78, no. 15, p. 41.
Court Delays Stall New Pilot Union
// ''Aviation Week & Space Technology'', July 8, 1963, v. 79, no. 2, p. 28.
Allied Pilots' Association website

American Airlines website
{{Authority control Trade unions in the United States Airline pilots' trade unions Trade unions established in 1963