American Airlines Union Talks Continue To Evolve

A couple of recent developments appear to add complexity to AA’s push through bankruptcy:

The pilots union has agreed to put AA’s latest offer out to it’s members for a vote.  Because of this, the bankruptcy judge has delayed his decision until August on whether or not to invalidate the union contracts.

On Tuesday, various media outlets were reporting that two other AMR unions were interested in re-starting contract talks.

I’m not exactly sure where this puts us in the AA bankruptcy saga.  On one hand, it’s good to see the unions coming back to the table.  Better labor relations are needed if AA wants to make a go of it as an independent carrier (no US Airways merger).  On the other hand, they can probably save more money if the judge invalidates the contracts, which he is likely to do.  Also, the delay of a month means that AA will continue to see delays in it’s exit from BK.  Currently, it has until September to control it’s own fate in BK.  After that, it’s possible the judge may rule that they are not allowed to self-navigate their path out, which would most likely be a bad thing.

The worst-case scenario I see here is that the judge delays his decision and the pilots vote down the new contract.  That would be very unfortunate.