Allegiant pilots planning to strike at midnight

By

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – It’s a popular airline for many people living in BC and flying out of Bellingham to places like Las Vegas, but if you have a flight scheduled with Allegiant you could find yourself stuck.

The airline’s pilots are planning to strike at midnight and that would ground around 250 flights, affecting 33,000 customers daily.

Claire Newell with Travel Best Bets says this is part of a two-year battle between the union and the airline.

“I’m sure that they will have plans in place should the airline be disrupted in any way.  Whether that is getting them on other airlines and getting them to their destination or whether that is allowing them to refund,” says Newell.  “I would expect in anticipation of a midnight strike that we would be getting information very soon.”

Allegiant sued the union yesterday to prevent a strike, which the airline says would cost millions of dollars a day and scare off customers.

The airline claims the walkout is illegal because not all mediation tactics have been tried. It also warns the strike could last until Tuesday.

“Striking is a last resort but we cannot continue to stand by a company that flaunts the law and by robbing the pilots of legally protected rights and benefits,” pilot Tom Pozdro wrote in a statement issued by the union.

 

Statement from Allegiant Air

“We are aware that the Teamsters are threatening a strike. We believe this would be an illegal action in violation of the Railway Labor Act and we have filed for a temporary restraining order to prevent this irresponsible disruption to our passengers’ holiday travel. We expect to receive a response to that court filing soon, and will update our passengers if we have reason to believe that any of our flights will be affected.”

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today