Then came the prank calls.
"Hey scab," one pilot said on the voice mail of a union officer. "Get ready to bend over and take Nicolau!"
Jamie Peachey
Jamie Peachey
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The lawsuit claims that a doll labeled "USAPA" was found hanging from a noose in a US Airways cockpit. At least two envelopes containing feces showed up in the new union's post office box. One guy who considered running for USAPA leadership, according to the suit, had personal information posted on a Web site controlled by the America West pilots. (He ultimately decided not to run.)
Then there was the jump-seat issue.
Pilots have a way of hitching a free ride home, or to their next destination, that depends on the kindness of colleagues. If a pilot is so inclined, he can let a visiting pilot join him in the cockpit's jump seat.
But as the merger soured, some West pilots decided there was too much tension between the two groups — no more jump seat rides for their East counterparts.
Admittedly, they also tried to get pilots from other unions to join them in exiling the breakaway union's pilots.
"They are the pariahs of the industry," one West pilot wrote on a message board. "Frankly, I think it is unsafe to have them on our jumps. They've made their bed, now they get to lie in it."
Finally, there was the money issue.
As a start-up union with few resources, USAPA was dependent on dues from all its members. But — even though they are required by law to contribute — some West pilots decided to say no. The union was formed to screw them, they reasoned. Why finance their own demise?
"Eighteen-hundred guys and gals standing on principle and refusing to pay an organization founded for and dedicated to the destruction of their careers?" one pilot wrote on the West message board. "I say let them try to fire 1,800 pilots."
Within one month, the union claims, it lost $298,000 in prospective dues.
But rather than hunker down and ride out the losses, or try to compromise with the West pilots, the union made an unusual decision. It decided to sue a dozen West pilots in federal court — for extortion, running a criminal enterprise, and nine other counts.
Gentilly, vice chairman for US Airways' newly formed pilots union, says that East pilots knew West pilots were unhappy with the new structure. They weren't surprised to hear grumbling.
But they were shocked at how nasty the West guys got.
"We were surprised by what we're alleging is criminal activity," he says. "We were definitely surprised that professional pilots would turn to alleged criminal activity, absolutely."
It had been a rough year for Ron Gabaldon.
The 56-year-old pilot and his wife had long been caregivers for her elderly parents, and in March 2008, her father passed away after a long illness. There was exhaustion; there were a zillion details to take care of; there was grief. It took two months for the couple, who live in Phoenix, to feel that they were getting back to normal.
Then came the lawsuit.
On June 2, Ron landed a flight at the Sacramento airport and, like any traveler these days, turned on his cell phone before he'd even exited the aircraft. On his voice mail was an urgent message from a fellow pilot. A lawsuit had been filed in North Carolina — and Gabaldon was being accused of defamation, tortious interference, conspiracy, and racketeering.
What did he do?
He posted a single message on a Web board frequented by America West pilots.
"I will not allow any scab to ride in my jump seat (in the interest of safety)," Gabaldon had written in April. "I'm networking with all my [union] friends at other carriers to put forth motions . . . to deny jump seats to all [pilots at the former US Airways]."
Gabaldon is one of the older pilots to come out of the America West system. Before he took a job there, he says, he'd been in the U.S. Air Force for seven years and then worked for Eastern Airlines.
He resents the East pilots' claims that America West pilots are all young punks. "We are as equal in our experience," he says. "And our safety record is bar none."
Gabaldon was hit hard by the suit. At first, told about it from his breathless friend in the Sacramento airport, he thought it was a joke: Conspiracy? He hadn't even been active in union politics. He'd never met most of his supposed co-conspirators.
He was so rattled that he asked his first officer to handle the route back to Phoenix. "I needed to concentrate on what I was going to say to my wife," he says. "It was just exhausting to care for her dad and mom — and now another battle to be confronted with . . . When I told her, she got this distinct look, like the life had been sucked out of her."
David Braid remembers a similar feeling when he learned he'd been named in the suit. Braid had made a single post in April regarding the toll-free hotline, noting the irony of the union complaining bitterly about pilots flooding their toll-free line with calls, even as it sent out a message urging membership to "call often to stay informed."
