Right now, the same airline pilots who fly your family for a vacation and deliver products for your business, large and small, are now fighting on the frontlines of the COVID-19 public-health crisis—transporting doctors, nurses, and medical personnel to the outbreak hotspots and keeping global supply chains moving to provide essential medical supplies. These same airline pilots are also helping strengthen the U.S. and Canadian economies by flying goods and services that drive commerce.

As the world confronts COVID-19, airline pilots are doing our jobs: safeguarding passengers and freight while bringing people, goods, and services together to drive the global economy. As your captains and first officers, we need Congress to do its job by swiftly providing economic assistance to stabilize the airline industry and protect the frontline aviation workers who help keep our skies safe and our country moving.

Government leaders are currently working on a third relief package that may include much-needed support for airlines. It is imperative that swift action be taken to ensure the viability of our industry and that frontline aviation workers are not left behind. ALPA is adamant that any airline relief program must include strong labor protections to ensure that frontline aviation employees and their families receive much-needed assistance.   

Worldwide, one of the biggest threats to the aviation system are atypical employment models, such as the ones being used by Ryanair in several countries in Europe.  Employers—through a variety of schemes—use atypical employment to dissolve their direct relationship with their pilots and cabin crews. These arrangements, which may include misclassifying pilots as self-employed or independent contractors, are meant to undermine the right to collectively bargain and otherwise dismantle the traditional employee-employer relationship related to pay, benefits, and working conditions

On June 5, nearly 200 ALPA members from 38 states conducted hundreds of meetings with members of Congress to press these decision makers to support pilot-partisan issues. This boots-on-the-ground effort known as “Hill Day” wrapped up ALPA’s seventh annual Legislative Summit on Capitol Hill.