As more pilots returned to work from their "sick-out," American Airlines yesterday managed to fly its full schedule in and out of the DR, and on-time as well. On February 6th AA pilots began to call in sick to protest AA plans to integrate less experienced (and thus lower-paid) pilots from the Reno Air chain AA bought last year. AA has had to cancel some 6,000 flights because of the de facto strike, costing it $67-90 million in losses. In the initial stages of the sick-in flights to the Caribbean, particularly the DR, were especially hard-hit as AA scrambled to rearrange its flight schedule. More and more flights returned to the schedule after a U.S. District Judge ruled the sick-out to be an illegal action and he threatened to begin imposing daily fines on the pilots union.
