AMR pilots willing 'to explore' salary cuts By Dan Reed, USA TODAY American Airlines' pilots union appears to be warming to management's=20 request for $660 million a year in labor concessions.Officials at the=20 airline and the Allied Pilots Association (APA) disputed a warning issued=20 by a union board member that American will file a Chapter 11 bankruptcy=20 petition within three months if it doesn't get the concessions. Both sides= =20 made clear that they agree with the outspoken board member's general=20 assessment that the airline's financial problems are serious and=20 urgent.Separately, Northwest Airlines formally asked its pilots for=20 concessions that union officials say would take pilots back to pre-1996 pay= =20 rates, a cut of about 20%.At American, published reports about the comments= =20 of Jeff Sheets =97 vice chairman of the American pilots union based at=20 Dallas/Fort Worth Airport =97 helped knock more than 9% off the stock price= =20 of parent AMR. The shares lost 26 cents to close at $2.58, sinking below=20 the previous 52-week low of $2.70. War jitters and concerns about high fuel prices also contributed to the=20 drop. But unlike American Airlines' stock, most other airline stocks closed= =20 slightly higher.Sheets' prediction of a May or June bankruptcy filing "in=20 no way constitutes an official APA position," union President John Darrah=20 said in a statement issued late Wednesday.He added that Sheets' prediction= =20 was not based on confidential financial information provided to union=20 leaders by management in connection with the request for concessions.AMR=20 wants a total of $1.8 billion a year in labor savings from all labor=20 groups.American spokesman Bruce Hicks dismissed Sheets' bankruptcy warning= =20 as "a non-mathematician doing math" based on American's reported cash burn= =20 rate and guessing at how much cash the airline management would want to=20 have at the time of a bankruptcy filing. "It's just one guy's rather unsophisticated speculation."Still, Hicks says= =20 it is important that union leaders "convey to their membership the=20 seriousness of the situation. It's important that the employees hear their= =20 union leaders saying that what the company has been telling them all along= =20 is the truth."Darrah reiterated the union's position that American "does=20 face an extremely difficult situation," and that a war with Iraq would=20 exacerbate its problems."We have signaled our willingness to explore cost=20 savings with American Airlines management," he said. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.dbombo.net/muddyangels/ TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************