United Airlines has moved court seeking to stop an alleged slowdown by its pilots union. The lawsuit filed by United Airlines – a major airline of the United States and a subsidiary of UAL Corporation – has accused that the Air Line Pilots Association and “certain” of its pilots of engaging “in deliberate, organised and unlawful job actions that resulted in hundreds of flights being canceled and impacted thousands of customers and employees.”

“Pilots of the United Airlines are refusing to pick up additional flying to order to protest against United Airlines’ plan to ground planes and lay off workers,” a statement from the airline said.

“The orchestrated sickout among pilots of Boeing 737 and co-pilots of Airbus A320,” the company said, has forced it to cancel 329 flights from July 19 to July 27, 2008, because it lacked crew members to fly those planes.

Pete McDonald, executive vice-president and chief administrative officer of United Airlines, said in the statement: “United Airlines thinks that 4 pilots are encouraging sick leave abuse and that there is a campaign to pressure other pilots from volunteering to fly more hours. It is absolutely irresponsible for the Air Line Pilots Association to promote unlawful behavior, particularly in this environment, when the industry is taking unprecedented actions to offset record fuel costs.”

“Our employees,” Pete McDonald added, “are working hard to make our company successful. We are going to ensure the integrity of our operation and will not allow the actions of the Air Line Pilots Association and certain pilots to continue to harm our customers, our employees and our company.”

The company’s statement links the alleged misbehavior of the pilots to unhappiness about the airline’s plans to reduce in size its operations and furlough pilots, and the desire by employees to get a better contract than the current one, which is amendable in 2009.

United Airlines is planning to cut 7,000 jobs and ground 100 of its aircraft.

The members of the Air Line Pilots Association have not so far commented on the lawsuit.

Disputes between management and labour have already hit hard the airline industry, which is reeling under the pressure of unprecedented rise in the prices of aviation fuel.

Pilots, flight attendants, mechanics and ground workers of the American Airlines, the world’s largest airline and a subsidiary of AMR Corporation, are unhappy about bonuses paid to management-cadre staff. They also complain that they work  under concessionary deals signed in 2003 to keep American Airlines out of bankruptcy.

Union leaders representing flight attendants and ground workers at Northwest Airlines – the principal subsidiary of Northwest Airlines Corporation and headquartered in Eagan, Minnesota, the United States – are working to block the proposed merger between Delta Air Lines Northwest Airlines. The union alleges that the management of Delta Air Lines is aiming at eliminating the pension plans for Northwest Airlines’ workers.

Two pilot factions among pilots at US Airways, a low-cost airline owned by US Airways Group Incorporated and headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, the United States, are at odds with one another as well as with the management. The reason: Pilots for the old, financially crippled US Airways claim that they have made greater sacrifices than their counterparts at the former America West and ought to be treated better in the next contract.

America West had taken over the old US Airways 3 years ago and kept its name.