HEBRON, Ky — Comair pilots walked off the job Monday after contract talks with the regional airline broke off, and union officials said the strike will last as long as necessary.
"I think it's fair to say that there was not a single Comair pilot that wanted this to happen, but we have prepared for this mentally and financially and we are together," union spokesman Max Roberts said shortly after the strike began at 12:01 a.m.
Comair, the nation's second-largest regional carrier after American Eagle, had canceled Monday's flights in advance of the walkout. It serves 95 cities in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas and carries more than 8 million passengers annually. It also flies under the name Delta Connection and is a Delta Air Lines subsidiary.
Comair's 1,350 pilots want a company-funded retirement plan, more rest time between flights, higher pay and payment for all hours they are on the job, not just actual flying hours.
"You shouldn't be angry at the pilots," Comair president Randy Rademacher told nonstriking employees. "They want more pay, they want better benefits, they want more respect for what they do.
Everybody in this room wants that. I want that."
Rademacher and other top managers were given a standing ovation by the nonstriking workers. "That's unbelievable guys. You don't know what that means to me," Rademacher said.
The airline intends to keep its roughly 4,000 nonpilot employees on the job during the strike.
The White House said Monday that President Bush, who earlier this month temporarily blocked a strike by Northwest Airlines mechanics, has no authority to intervene unless the federal mediation board determines the impasse is hurting the economy and a presidential commission is set up.
There is no indication the board will change course "and that is why the president has urged the parties to come together," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
"The president's hands are tied," he said.
Both sides have said they are willing to negotiate, but no new talks were scheduled.
Twenty uniformed pilots staged the first picketing outside the airline's home terminal at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.
Pilots and their families cheered, clapped and whistled at the airport when the strike announcement was made.
James C. Lawson, chairman of the Comair pilots' division of the Air Line Pilots Association, told the crowd that Comair pilots want the same rights and dignity as other airline pilots.
"It has been a ruse and a management ploy to classify you as regional pilots," he said. "You are airline pilots."
Comair spokeswoman Meghan Glynn said negotiators were told by union leaders Sunday they were unwilling to compromise on the major issues of pay, retirement and work rules.
Union spokesman Don Skiados said Monday in Washington that the pilots' negotiators had been prepared to keep talking through the strike deadline, but the company representatives left after discussions broke down Sunday.
Talks will not resume unless the Bush administration asks the parties to come back together, Skiados said. At the White House, Fleischer said "the president has urged the parties to come together."
Comair, which also has a hub in Orlando, Fla., was working to help its customers find alternative transportation on Delta or other airlines. Northwest Airline said it will honor Comair tickets.
The airline said a contract offer that pilots rejected March 19 would have given the pilots a company-funded retirement program and would have increased the pay of top-scale pilots from $66,000 to $96,000.
But only about 40 Comair pilots who have at least 18 years of experience would have been eligible for that top pay, union leaders said.
Comair was founded in 1977, and this is its first pilots' strike.
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