FORT LAUDERDALE, May 09 2017 – Cellphone video captured the mayhem that erupted Monday night at the Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after hundreds of travellers became stranded.
Security wrestled with unruly passengers as punches flew, leading to at least three arrests. Screams wailed through the under-construction terminal, as officers wrestled passengers to the ground.
At the Spirit Airlines ticket counters, swarms of distraught customers waited two to three hours in an attempt to learn why they had been stranded in Broward County, Florida.
The cancellations stemmed from an ongoing labour dispute between Spirit Airlines and the Air Line Pilots Association, International. Pilots are arguing for better contracts, which they say are currently below industry standards.
On Monday, Spirit Airlines filed a federal lawsuit against the ALPA in the South District of Florida, alleging the pilots are engaging in a “pervasive illegal work slowdown” and causing “irreparable harm to [Spirit’s] goodwill with its customers.”
Since the beginning of May, approximately 300 flights have been cancelled due to the disruption, according to the lawsuit. It also claims 81 flights were cancelled on Sunday.
Twenty-eight more were cancelled by Tuesday morning.
“This slowdown is in direct violation of the [Railway Labor Act], which prohibits work slowdowns and strikes during collective bargaining negotiations, as expressly recognised by a series of court decisions, including by this Circuit in Delta Air Lines v. Air Line Pilots Association, International,” the lawsuit states.
Spirit spokesman Paul Berry said in a statement said the airline is “shocked and saddened” by the what took place in the Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
“This is a result of unlawful labour activity by some Spirit pilots designed to disrupt Spirit operations for our customers, by cancelling multiple flights across our network,” Berry said. “These pilots have put their quest for a new contract ahead of getting customers to their destinations and the safety of their fellow Spirit Team Members.”
Capt. Stuart Morrison, chairman of the Spirit unit of ALPA, fired back, saying that the pilots would not work for “substandard” contracts.
“Spirit pilots are not prepared to embark on the fool’s errand of accepting substandard pay and retirement based on the unenforceable hypothesis that the Company may grow more quickly,” Morrison said in a statement. “Our ‘peers’ throughout the industry have uniformly and properly rejected agreements based on that theory.”
But while the pilots and the airline went back and forth, hundreds of passengers were forced to figure out new routes after being left without a flight out of Florida
Due to the labour disputes, Spirit is currently the airline with the most cancellations worldwide.
Like our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CaribbeanNewsService/
Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/CNewsService
Follow us on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/caribbeannewsservice/
