ALPA’s Three Major Challenges of the New Millennium
By Capt. Duane E. Woerth, ALPA President

This is the reason why I decided to dedicate the January issue of Heads Up! to my administration’s vision of ALPA’s continued evolution and top priorities for this year. This "Millennium Issue" will focus on the three major challenges that our Association will face in 2000 and succeeding years. And we, as a force of 55,000 strong, must work together to meet these challenges … challenges that will touch all our professional lives on a variety of levels.

I must warn you that none of these challenges can be solved overnight—not one will be solved by a "quick and dirty" fix. Instead, each will require long-term, extensive, and multi-tiered action plans for change. I cannot stress enough that this action plan must begin immediately—for what we do, or fail to do, today will profoundly affect our tomorrow.

The first major challenge we must address is altering ALPA’s internal structure—to hopefully secure greater member involvement in union activities and to allow our union’s operations to become more efficient and cost-effective. We hope that restructuring our organization will cause member participation in pilot group activities—at both the MEC and LEC levels—to increase markedly.

Volunteerism is the life force of this Association, and my administration will continue to do all it can to ensure that member participation is rising, not falling.

Now, I realize that change is never easy, but to quote Franklin D. Roosevelt, "There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still."

ALPA can’t afford to stand still in this area.

ALPA’s second major challenge extends to the international stage—particularly as our industry has become, and will continue to be, increasingly globalized. As such, our union’s second challenge is composed of several global priorities, namely:

• developing constructive relationships with foreign pilot groups;
• enhancing the role of the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations and further developing international pilot alliances that address all pilots’ concerns;
• preventing foreign carriers from carrying U.S. and Canadian domestic traffic (cabotage); and
• preventing foreign control of U.S. and Canadian airlines.

ALPA’s international agenda will focus on keeping the bar high regarding pilot compensation and work rules, and preventing airline safety from ever being compromised. We can never allow aviation to follow the maritime industry’s disastrous slide under the "flag of convenience" rules.

The third major challenge that ALPA, along with other interested parties, must tackle is airspace modernization, in both the U.S. and Canada. Our congested air traffic systems must be revitalized—new technologies applied and a proper federal funding stream guaranteed—to ensure we have an airspace system capable of meeting the incredible rise in passenger and cargo demands forecast for the very near future.

ALPA must be a leader in this massive effort because it is a pure safety issue and safety is a paramount pilot issue.

I realize that dealing with the three major challenges I just outlined (they will be described further in the articles contained in this publication) will require a tremendous, coordinated effort from the entire ALPA membership in the U.S. and Canada. However, I am optimistic and absolutely confident that if each is attacked with ALPA’s "trademarked" tenacity, we will achieve success on all fronts.

We have prevailed over greater obstacles in the past, and I am confident that the same will be true as we face the three great challenges—for our union, our industry, and our profession—of the new millennium.

Additional Articles in this issue of Heads Up!:

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