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- BUSINESS, Page 45Business NotesLABOREven Captains Get the Flu
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- American Airlines is one of the strongest U.S. carriers, but
- lately it has been feeling under the weather. Last week the
- airline said it will have to cancel at least 230 flights, or
- 11% of its daily schedule, including all its Los Angeles -- to
- -- San Francisco flights. American attributed the reduction to
- a shortage of pilots, who the carrier says have been calling
- in sick at a high rate -- more than 500 on some days, twice the
- normal number. The airline accuses the pilots of staging an
- illegal sick-out to put pressure on American in negotiations
- that have been going on since October 1989 over the pilots'
- next five-year contract. The pilots deny organizing any
- sick-out.
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- In full-page newspaper ads, American embarrassed itself last
- week when it tried to apologize to passengers for the problems
- caused by the flight cancellations. The airline got the name
- of the pilots' union wrong, calling it the Airline Pilots
- Association instead of the Allied Pilots Association. The
- following day American ran a corrected ad, and tough-talking
- chairman Robert Crandall had to apologize all over again, this
- time in a letter to the union.
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