Mediator Tries To Avert Airline Strike

As American Airlines and its pilots’ union kept up negotiations aimed at heading off a weekend strike, some veteran pilots were considering early retirement to avoid the turmoil of a shutdown.

The Allied Pilots Association and American’s parent company, AMR Corp., met separately with a federal mediator Tuesday; little progress was reported.

“To date, we don’t know what the company’s response is on anything,” said union president Jim Sovich. “We’re sitting here dancing in the dark, trying to ferret out what they want.”

American spokesman Al Comeaux said union and company representatives planned a meeting with each other Tuesday night. Aside from an initial meeting Monday, the two sides had been in different rooms with a federal mediator shuttling information back and forth.

If an agreement is not reached by midnight Friday, the end of a federally mandated cooling-off period, the pilots say they will strike and the airline says it will shut down, putting about 90,000 employees on unpaid furlough and grounding its fleet.

In the second day of talks, Sovich said he thought a strike was “more likely than not.”

Several lawmakers have asked President Clinton to intervene, and some of them were to meet on the issue today with White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles.

American and the union, which represents 9,300 pilots, have been arguing over pay and who will fly a proposed small jet service.