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Introduction

Magic Carpet Airlines (MCA) was a regional airline that was established in 1961. MCA grew to serve 18 cities in its first 26 years as a company. In 1987, MCA purchased River City Airlines (RCA), an airline that was then serving 12 cities. The merger of these two airline companies formed a small national airline until 1988, when it entered into a marketing agreement to become a feeder airline for a major national airline.

Before MCA and RCA merged, neither company’s flight attendants were unionized. With the merging of these two companies, flight attendants at both airlines started to worry about how MCA management resolved personnel issues. These fears led flight attendants to contact the union League of Flight Attendants (LFA). Despite opposition from MCA, the LFA won a union certification election with 82% of the vote.

Now that MCA’s flight attendants were unionized, MCA and LFA cooperated effectively to secure a four-year contract between the two organizations and a three-year extension on that contract. At the end of those seven years the LFA decided to seek significant changes to the contract and issues started to surface during the negotiations between the two organizations. In this case study, we will identify the main issues in this case, provide an analysis of those issues, and then we will provide solutions/recommendations for those issues.

Identification of the Main Issues/Problems

There are four main issues that were presented in the case analysis. The first has to do with the flight attendants being worried about how MCA management resolved personal issues. The MCA negotiating team being in transition lead to confusion was the second issue. The third had to do with how MCA did not take the LFA or the negotiations seriously. The last was the disconnect between the company and the negotiating team. In our case analysis, we will further explore these issues as well as the ways negotiation teams can prevent these issues from happening.

MCA’s Approach to Personnel Issues

Transitioning Negotiating Team

MCA’s Treatment of the LFA Negotiation Team

Disconnect Between the Company and the Negotiating Team

Recommendations