The following letter was authored with the intention of sending it to the IAP 2750 Negotiating committee. Many of us are very concerned with what the negotiating strategy and tactics going into the upcoming negotiations will be. Several of us put together what we think represents the real changes we need to increase QOL, pay, and legitimately become a destination cargo airline.

Please read it and If you agree with our views please sign as it will help show the committee how many of us find these issues far more important than what they seem to be focused on in surveys sent from the University of new Hampshire.

Our apologies if the Word formatting didn't transfer to this website. The final letter sent to the committee will have better formatting and include highlights of specific changes. If you have any additional thoughts or concerns, please feel free to include them in the comments of yours signature.

IAP 2750 Negotiating Committee Members,

We, the undersigned pilots and IAP 2750 union members, are writing to you regarding the upcoming contract negotiations beginning in December, 2025. After receiving the surveys regarding said negotiations, many of us are concerned that the negotiations will be focusing on the wrong issues and will not be taking into account the wishes of the entire pilot group. Many of us truly believe that Atlas air could become a destination airline with very few changes.

There truly are many positives to life at Atlas versus any passenger airline, including the legacies. And we are appreciative of the paid commuting (despite travel making it as hard as possible), paid hotels on reserve, incredibly flexible schedules, and the ability to achieve large amounts of time off.

However, there are many things at Atlas that are worse than at regional airlines. Including a contract that demoralizes its pilot group instead of promoting professionalism and incentivizing pilots to work hard and to help the company. And that’s if scheduling and travel even deign to follow the contract that day. The upcoming contract negotiations represent an opportunity to right the ship and start Atlas on the path to being a destination airline. If we go about this the right way, fight for the issues that need to be fought, and work with the company. We need real quality of life improvements, actual protections for lineholders, and realistic pay increases that will make us a viable option for pilots, but also levels that the company can agree to.

We sincerely hope that no time or energy is wasted upon negotiations based on raising the direct contribution to our 401k. 16% is only 2% less than the 18% of Delta Airlines and United Airlines. 16% also represents an amount that 95% of Americans will never realize. If our airline’s goal is to become a destination airline, to retain talent, and to have a working CBA that is fair for all employees, not just the oldest and most senior, then this is the single worst negotiating point in our next negotiations. We have no hope of exceeding the direct contributions of legacy airlines and to waste efforts on it would be counterproductive and against the wishes of the average Atlas pilot.

We need to stop negotiating based on the “stop the attrition,” mentality. Anyone that’s actually looked at the numbers recognizes that we don’t have any net attrition, the pilot group is growing at roughly 7% per year. The company certainly knows this and doesn’t consider it attrition. Any successful negotiations will incentive pilots to stay or come to Atlas and in turn increase pilot pool growth. Instead we should choose to negotiate with the company in good faith to reach a contract that will retain and attract pilots allowing the airline to grow and to succeed. With this so will our pay and their profits. The argument should be that incentivizing pilots to stay will save them millions of dollars in training costs and have more pilots available for added aircraft and customers.

Also, it must be carefully considered and planned what tactics will be used if negotiations fail. Simply put: we need to be prepared to vote to strike. And the union needs to be prepared to support its pilots during that possibility. Additionally, every ALPA airline that voted to strike in the last 2 years has gotten everything they’ve asked for in their contracts. This is not the climate for airlines to be dictating contracts to pilots with impunity. We cannot be a divided group or unwilling to play hardball if it becomes necessary.

Below we hope to highlight the areas we feel need to be improved. In some cases literal amendments to the CBA clauses themselves, and in some cases simply the spirit in which we feel the CBA should be modified. Obviously, regardless of the CBA itself, one of the biggest issues is enforcement and the fact that almost every department seems to flagrantly ignore the CBA whenever they choose.

I - Article 3 / Compensation

Firstly it should be mentioned that the number one goal in these negotiations should be to raise the Minimum Monthly Guarantee to the industry standard of 75 hours. This represents a 14% base raise for every pilot, and any negotiations that do not accomplish this should honestly be considered a failure. Furthermore, due to the nature of flying that we do, the 75 hour min guarantee should be for a maximum of 15 days on per month, after which the guarantee should be raised to 85 hours per month.

With the removal of the 767 and 737 fleets, all remaining aircraft are ultra longhaul aircraft. The idea that 75 block hours can’t be reached within a two week period flying 15 hour legs is ridiculous. This raise in minimum guarantee will not only raise the minimum pay of the pilot group as a whole, but will also force more efficient lines and schedules to be created.

Also, scheduling has no incentive to follow the CBA because they suffer no repercussions for violating it. We should have subsections in 25.N.1 that clearly lay out that primary lines are NOT able to be modified, and that if any portion of a Primary Lineholder’s schedule cancels, they are canceled. And if the amount of flying canceled exceeds x amount of the flying within that pairing, then the crew member is simply sent home as a primary lineholder is NOT a reservist. It also needs to be made very explicitly clear that if scheduling chooses to add additional flying not originally published on the crew member’s line, then that added/alternate flying will be paid either on top of Bidline Guarantee or at 150%. That is not the suggested wording, simply two possible suggestions. Both of which would compensate pilots for unexpected and unfair schedule changes, as well as incentivise the scheduling department to be efficient, use reservists efficiently, and to follow the CBA. The added compensation should continue until the crew member is either sent home or returned to their original line flying.

3.A.1

There should be NO pay rate differences between the 747 and 777 fleets!

FO increases - In order to retain talent and be competitive with virtually any

other airline post-covid, year 4 to year 8 pay needs the largest increase. 20% would be the recommended increase. Year 3+ compensation for FOs

needs to be over $200/hr to be competitive in the current climate. Year 1 pay needs to be at least $100/hr including training. Year 2 and Year 3 pay could honestly stay as is… perhaps a small raise on Year 3 would be fair.

CA increases - 10% would bring 12yr min guarantee (@75 hours) to roughly

$330,000/year which is beyond reasonable for the next contract

period.

We cannot negotiate with the mindset of success only being measured

by insanely high pay rates rivaling legacy airlines. We need a contract in a timely manner with soft pay and actual lineholder protections. Not a drawn out, protracted negotiation, where by the time we have a contract that no one wants, it’s already 15 years behind the rest of the industry.

3.A.2.a.xi - should be amended to read:

“When a Crew Member uses a sick Day, the Crew Member will be credited and paid 4.85 (or 6.85 with updated rig. Either way it should not exhaust your entire sick bank just to call in sick) hours per Day up to the applicable Minimum Monthly Guarantee or Bidline Guarantee, whichever is HIGHER, in accordance with Article 14.C.”

*14.C.3.b should also be updated to reflect this.*

3.A.2.a.ii - should be amended so that deadhead pay on company aircraft, commercial

aircraft, or surface transport is paid at a 1:1 ratio exactly as block is. This

will again promote more efficient schedules with less pointless

Deadheading.

3.A.2.c.v - Suggested additional clause to read:

“For any flights not initially scheduled on a primary lineholder’s schedule,

but added to a primary lineholder’s schedule, either operating

or deadheading, the block value of these flights shall be added to the

crewmembers bidline guarantee for the month and said bidline guarantee adjusted accordingly.”

3.A.2.c.vi - Suggested additional clause to read:

“For any flight scheduled on a primary lineholder’s line that said

crewmember operates, and the flight’s block time is higher than that

scheduled. The lineholder’s bidline guarantee shall be adjusted by having

the amount of overblock added to his or her bidline guarantee for the

month.”

3.A.2.b.vi - Should be amended to read: “A Crew Member shall receive CRT credit equal

to one (1) hour of credit for every 3.503 hours of CRT.”

This will force line and scheduling efficiency

3.B.1 - Should be amended to read: “Except as otherwise provided for in this Article 3.B.,

a Crew Member who is available for work on each Day that he is

scheduled for duty during the Bid Month shall be entitled to receive a

Minimum Monthly Guarantee of seventy-five (75) hours of pay at his

applicable hourly wage rate. A Crew Member who is scheduled as a CTI

for the Bid Month and is available for Work on each day that he is

scheduled for duty during that Bid Month shall be entitled to receive a

Minimum Monthly Guarantee of eighty-five (85) hours.

3.B.1.a - Proposed added clause to read:

“Any Primary line holding crew member whose awarded line consists of

sixteen (16) or more work days per month and is available for work on

each day that he is scheduled for duty during the bid month shall be

entitled to receive a minimum monthly guarantee of eight-five (85) hours

of pay at their applicable hourly wage rate.

II - Article 4 / Profit Sharing

4.B.5 - Proposed clause to read:

“After the yearly profit sharing percentage for pilots has been

calculated, an additional 0.5% shall be added for every 5 years of service. E.g. if the finalized profit sharing is 6% a 15 year employee would receive 7.5%”

Note of Intent: It was brought to our attention, and rightly so, that while we truly believe the contents of this letter would raise the pilot group at Atlas Air as a whole, many of our propositions do benefit junior pilots planning to stay here long term. While it’s not fair to snub either side of seniority in a contract, there is something to be said for the very senior pilots on both the Atlas and Southern side who built this house under less than ideal contracts.

Loyalty or longevity bonuses are in no way unheard of. One of the easiest ways to do this would be within an existing bonus and this would represent a very real perk for loyal pilots with a lot of longevity at Atlas.

To give a further example of what this might represent for senior pilots: let’s go with our example from Article 3 of a min guarantee of $330,000/ year for 12+ year captains and 6% profit sharing. 6% profit sharing would be $19,800. 7.5% for a 15 year CA would be $24,750. This would be a 25% higher bonus. Eventually this would benefit every pilot who elects to stay at Atlas, as well. This would represent immediate benefits for senior pilots and incentive for junior pilots to stay with the knowledge their profit sharing will eventually increase.

III - Article 5 / Travel Expenses

5.D.1 - Should be amended:

To include either 5.D.1.c.i or 5.D.1.p which states:

“Working air conditioning which must be able to be controlled by

the crew member from within their room.”

5.D.4 - The burden should be on the company to prove why they are not providing

breakfast for crewmembers when other airlines and guests are receiving

such benefits. Most notably the LGG hotel where the hotel staff has even shown us their books and that Altas has negotiated a no breakfast rate lower than anyone else pays.

Additional Points:

1. Crew Members should be allowed to pick their hotel from approved hotels. Breakfast etc. should be guaranteed when outbasing.
2. Hotel points and stay credit should be guaranteed.

IV - Article 6 / Gateway Travel

1. Travel should not be allowed to argue or deny flights over ridiculous sums of money i.e. $10
2. Travel cannot deny gateway for rest, there are no FARs requiring rest prior to trip start
3. xxx gateway should not be limited to $1250, it should be whatever the required ticket

costs are. Also CM Travel LOA B.2.H is never allowed to be used. Positive

space jumpseating to work would solve many issues here.

1. No imputed income for gateway travel.
2. Consider removal of the travel department altogether as an unnecessary entity.

V - Article 8 / Deadhead Travel

8.A.2.a - add subsection v. stating:

“8.A.2.a does NOT preclude a jumpseater from occupying any

remaining supernumerary seats.”

8.A.4 - Amended to read:

“Notwithstanding Article 8.A.8., below, all domestic commercial

deadheading in excess of four and one-half (4.5) block hours in a single duty period, based on the duration of the Crew Member’s commercial deadhead reflected in the Crew Management System or actual purchased commercial deadhead ticket block time whichever is HIGHER, shall be

Business Class travel or higher class of service(s).”

8.A.3.A - Amended to read:

“If Business Class travel or higher class of service is not available, the

Crew Member may be required to travel in Economy Class. When a Crew

Member is required to travel in Economy Class for an international deadhead segment that is scheduled for three (3) block hours or more, he shall be entitled to compensation of two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500).

8.A.11.a.i - Add subsection i. Stating:

“If non-stop travel is available, and that non-stop travel is over 4.5 hours

and/or an international flight, requiring business or better to be booked,

the company shall NOT attempt to circumvent this document and deny a crew member required business or better tickets by manipulating the crew member’s schedule to include additional travel legs and length, in violation of 8.A.11.a, that include flight(s) on company aircraft with the sole intent of forcing the remaining commercial legs to now be short enough to not warrant business or better tickets.

8.A.11.a.ii - add subsection ii stating:

“If multiple legs of deadhing are required and the company has elected to

schedule a leg on company aircraft, class of service shall be determined

not by the length of commercial DH legs, but by the overall length of the

entire deadhead. If any legs are international and/or if domestically the

entire deadhead, including legs on company aircraft, is over 4.5 hours,

then the tickets shall be purchased in business class or higher.

Note of intent:

The games between our third party travel vendor, pilots,

and scheduling must stop. This job is hard and stressful enough without the company intentionally attempting to circumvent the rights that they gave us. It was the company themselves who added business or better for

domestic flights over 4.5 hours in 2021… immediately, and ever since, they have fought tooth and nail to never actually allow us to benefit from this. Modern economy airline travel on any leg over 2.5 hours is honestly exhausting, painful, and unhealthy. It is ridiculous to think that any crew member could do so for in some cases 8-12 hours because of these manipulations and be rested and ready to operate a company aircraft.

Also, while everyone acknowledges that saving money when possible is a good thing, why are both we as a pilot group, and the company itself, allowing a third party travel vendor to so effectively disrupt operations through the manipulation of crew member’s schedules in order to deny classes of service owed to said crew members? It is a horribly myopic way to look at this where one entity only cares about their budget and balance sheet and doesn’t look at any of the ensuing problems it creates down the line.

Oftentimes it takes 6+ hours of fighting with the travel department and the involvement of other departments, the union, etc. to force them to comply with the CBA and purchase the correct tickets in the correct class of service. How many fatigue calls stem from having to deal with a travel vendor, then being crammed into an economy seat for no reason? If the company wants fatigue calls to lessen, the games must stop. One obvious answer is to simply get rid of utilizing a travel vendor. Another would be to expand pilots’ rights for booking their own travel when at an impasse with said vendor.

The company philosophy regarding the CBA needs to stop being “we can do whatever we want to the pilots, whenever we want.”

It should also be noted that we need to put a stop to the incessant deadheading built into lines. Deadheading is stressful and exhausting, commercial far more so than company. It’s also inefficient to have a crewmember that over a two week period deadheads around the world 8-10 legs to only operate 3. Does any other airline operate in a manner that ineffeciently?

There is not one line in the entire CBA that says we are required to utilize the travel department for either gateway or deadhead travel. So why is it that we are forced to be at the mercy of a third party vendor that does not have any interests except for not spending money? Either Atlas is willing to accept that they are an airline that operates by moving aircraft and personnel around the globe or they aren’t. The simple fact is that it occasionally costs money, and why do we have provisions as to classes of service and hours of deadheads requiring these when the departments then work in collusion to undermine that at every turn. In addition to which, how much money is lost by the travel department canceling required tickets and then having to rebook them again at the last minute? Why are there not more provisions allowing for crew members to book their own travel without fear of discipline?

VI. - Article 25 / Scheduling

This section of the CBA is so broken that it’s almost not worth mentioning individual sections and more worth speaking as to the broader intent with which we hope this is modified.

Firstly 25.N.1 is possibly the single worst part of the entire Atlas Air CBA. It is worse than anything written into the contracts of the worst regional airlines. Starting with 25.N.1.a it MUST be amended to read “The Company may NOT reassign a Crew Member holding a Primary Line in Domestic-Scheduled Operations or International-Scheduled Operations from his Trip Pairing at any time for ANY reasons except those explicitly stated below:”

If this is not amended we are agreeing to have no actual value or protections as primary line holders. Literally no other airline in America treats primary lineholders so badly. Even at the worst regional airlines bidline guarantee is respected if you call in sick, canceled schedules do not require you to go to work, and displacement for OE means you stay home with pay. This might be the most important section of the CBA that needs to be modified in order to escape the mindset that the company can do whatever it wants to pilots, whenever it wants to.

Furthermore we need less primary lines and more reserve lines. It is a statistical impossibility to have every single line be min guarantee. At any other airline, bidline guarantees follow a bell curve. You have incredibly low value lines for those that don’t want to work, incredibly high value lines for those that do, and then a bell distribution in between. We do not have enough reserve lines or reservists. By Michael Steen’s own admission we are not an ad hoc airline and that excuse cannot be used going further. Atlas needs to learn from decades of other airlines' scheduling that works. There is no reason we can’t have PBS or anything else either.

Scheduling has no incentive to follow the CBA because they suffer no repercussions for violating it. This should also be under Article 3, but very simply we should have subsections in 25.N.1 that clearly lay out that if any portion of a Primary Lineholder’s schedule cancels, they are canceled. And if the amount of flying canceled exceeds x amount of the flying in that pairing, then the crew member is simply sent home. It also needs to be made very explicitly clear that if scheduling chooses to add additional flying not originally published on the crew member’s line, then that added/alternate flying will be paid either on top of Bidline Guarantee or at 150%. That is not the suggested wording, simply two possible suggestions. Both of which would compensate pilots for unexpected and unfair schedule changes, as well as incentivise the scheduling department to be efficient, use reservists efficiently, and to follow the CBA. The added compensation should continue until the crew member is either sent home or returned to their original line flying.

25.I.10 - No fly lists need to be respected and non punitive. NO ONE should be contacted by

chief pilots after adding someone to their no fly list.

25.D.5 - Should be amended to read:

“The number of Reserve Lines in the initial bid process (excluding Reserve Lines

that include R-3, and Reserve Lines offered in accordance with Article 31.F.) will

not exceed forty (40%) of the total number of Lines by Position for that Bid

Month.

Note: If the company is concerned with the added cost of hotels for reservists, if

we have more reservists, our response would be simply that it wouldn’t affect

anything. In fact they might save money if enough of the lines are R-1.

Currently the company is spending a fortune deadheading primary lineholders around the world and then paying for them to sit in hotels around the world doing nothing while sitting as de facto floating reservists. Having reservists on reserve and protecting primary lineholders will limit interruptions in operations, as well as raise morale amongst lineholders.

25.N.1.B and C - Should be removed entirely from the CBA or in lieu of “B” there should be a

statement that no primary lineholder’s line or portion thereof may be

converted to reserve.

25.D.9.b - Should be removed from the CBA and instead R-1 lines should be added under

25.D.9.c or rather 25.D.9.c becomes 25.D.9.b and is just all encompassing

of reserve lines.

A specified percentage of reserve lines should be R-1 as opposed to R-2. Perhaps the R-1 percentage of lines should stay at 20% or go up or down?

25.D.9.a.iii - MUST be enforced and/or reworded to clearly state that canceling a primary

lineholder’s flying and sitting them in a city or even deadheading them for a period in excess of 48 hours is reserve duty and therefore forbidden.

25.D.9.a.vi - suggested added clause:

“The number of Primary Lines in the initial bid process will not exceed a

percentage of the total number of Lines, by equipment type, whereas the creation

of additional primary lines would lower the average block hours of the primary

lines (in said bid package) to an amount greater than fifteen percent (15%) below minimum guarantee”

15% is a suggested amount, the actual could vary, but the intent is simple: we have too many primary lines and it causes two problems: 1. It waters down the primary lines so they are of no credit value, demoralizing the pilot group, and they are incredibly inefficient lines consisting almost entirely of deadheads; both of which give pilots no incentive to fly them. 2. It gives us no reservists on hand to cover flying if delays or schedule changes occur. We need more reserves in place that are actually utilized instead of disrespecting primary lines and using primary lineholders as floating reservists - see 25.D.9.a.iii

Through a properly utilized network of in base, home based (R-1), and outbased reservists the flight system will be far less impacted by delays than by distressing primary lineholders who no longer have any incentive to operate flights. And when a true crisis occurs and a primary lineholder’s schedule must be modified to cover something that would otherwise result in a major delay and/or monetary loss for the company. Additional compensation for that change incentivizes, not punishes, lineholders and this will in turn increase operational efficiency.

25.D.9.c.iv - Should be amended to read:

“All Reserve Lines will be bid on by reserve type and the specifically awarded

line will ONLY include reserve of the type bid upon, or a less restrictive reserve type. Ergo an R-1 reserve line may ONLY include R-1 Duty. An R-2 reserve line may include R-1 or R-2 duty.”

As indicated above with the removal of 25.D.9.b Secondary lines should be removed from the bid package altogether and instead we should have dedicated R-1 reserve lines. As it stands “SCDY” is one of the best tools of crew scheduling to water down primary lines, take away from lineholders, and abuse reservists. R-1 lines will save money on gateway travel and have pilots on reserve around the system instead of solely in bases. This will help stop scheduling’s abuse of primary lineholders as reservists and allow more flexible allocation of known resources without forcing any change in aircraft schedule to result in disruption of a lineholders schedule or instant open time events that will force a delay. This would also increase the potential for actually having commutable open time available to pilots who want it.

25.D.9.c.v - Proposed clause stating:

“Reserve duty may ONLY take place in the base of the awarded reserve line (R-2) or at the crew member’s home (R-1). If a reservist receives a flying assignment and no further flying is assigned, they MUST be returned to their base (R-2) or home (R-1). Crew Scheduling shall not utilize deadheads to keep the reservist away from base as a floating reservist.

VII. Further Points

1. There should be a two year mandatory waiting period before moving from a union executive position to a management position.
2. More GDOs should be available per year (6-8).
3. Payment for reconciling concur or removing the need to do concur
4. FAA first class Medicals paid for by Atlas
5. If the Scheduling Committee and Scheduling Enhancement Group are able to retain so much control over the building of schedules they should be voted into their respective committees. And be accountable to the pilot group for the lines that they create. Every fleet and seat must have representation, as well.
6. A comprehensive revamping of the entire scheduling and line building process is needed. Modernized, better, software should be used. PBS should be considered, as well. Efficiency and pilot incentivization should be prioritized.
7. Opentime trips cannot be posted with closing times that are AFTER the first leg of the trip leaves.
8. Opentime trips can no longer be posted under the threat of no shows. Scheduling needs to attempt to figure it out with your location and schedule, then move on to the next person if it won’t work. The new “system” simply doesn't work.

In closing,

Atlas, and we as a pilot group, desperately need more efficiency and cost savings. At the same time we need to be incentivizing the pilot group with pay. No pilot has any incentive to work or to act in the company’s best interests at minimum guarantee every month. Especially when that guarantee is industry trailing pay and block is so low that you have no hope of exceeding it. At the same time we need to make the company understand that paying us an industry standard wage will both attract and retain pilots while increasing their profits through better on time performance and pilots wanting flights to leave. Not to mention the boost in how much pride is taken in someone’s job when they know that they work for a company where people actually want to be.

Those of us who’ve signed below truly believe that Atlas Air offers a career experience that is unachievable anywhere else, and we sincerely hope that these negotiations will be able to raise the quality of life of the pilot group as a whole and start us on a path forward where pilots want to come to Atlas as a destination airline and end their careers here. We sincerely hope that you will consider our suggestions and recognize that the pilot group wants real change and that these negotiations cannot be protracted or negotiated for things we do not want or care about.

In unity,