A pilot for a Mexican vacation airline is in jail after he locked himself on the flight deck of a Boeing 737-300 full of passengers who were expecting him to fly them from Mexico City to Cancun. Instead, he said he wouldn’t come out until the airline, Magnicharters, paid all its pilots up to five months in back pay. The pilot got on the P.A. and pleaded his case to the passengers, who were stuck on the plane until security personnel came aboard, forced the door, and arrested him without incident. The flight was then canceled.
Magnicharters has reportedly been struggling financially for some time, and the pilot involved told his passengers he’d had to buy his own charts to keep working. The airline declined to comment on the incident and is apparently still operating. It’s not clear if the pilots have since been paid.
If he hadn’t been paid for that long, I doubt that he’s the only pilot they were stiffing. I think I would have engaged the other pilots in a joint action, rather than go it alone. There is visibility, if not safety, in numbers. Is there no MALPA?
BTW, kudos on finding that shot of Magnicharters airframes, literally up on blocks. Perfect visual metaphor.
Nothing like a protest that will guarantee you will lose your job and not fly with any other airline ever.
From the Mexican coverage, this looks less like a heroic labor protest and more like an aviation security problem once passengers are stuck on the airplane. I get why the pilot was boiling after months without pay, but you can’t use passengers as leverage. That is when the paperwork gets ugly fast.
Magnicharters is a Mexican airline corporation operating under Mexico’s aviation rules and federal labor law. It runs a small fleet of five Boeing 737-300s and has several hundred employees.
What’s not clear in the public record is whether its pilots are flying under an ASPA collective bargaining agreement. ASPA is the Mexican pilots’ union. If Magnicharters pilots are outside ASPA, it’s easier for a pay dispute to drift out of the office and into day-to-day ops, and that’s when it can end up in the cabin.
Bottom line, Mexican federal labor law still applies. When wages aren’t paid, workers have routes to file claims and pursue back pay.
BTW, that boneyard photo is Kingman (KIGM). I’ve been there plenty of times shooting ILS approaches back in the early 2000s.
I am sure he got all his money plus a raise and a bonus as thank you for bringing this story to the airlines attention.