September 8, 2026
Participants for AMFA:
Bret Oestreich – National President
Earl Clark – Region I Director
Wilber "Will" Abbott – Region II Director
Louis Upchurch – Local 4 ALR
Frank Suentzenich – Local 11 ALR
Wayne Lampley – Local 18 ALR
Ken Patrick – Local 32 ALR
Lucas Middlebrook – Legal Counsel
Peter Manikowski – Economist
Participants for Southwest Airlines:
Kurt Kinder – VP, Maintenance Operations
Don Roberts – Mng. Dir. Tech. Ops Production
Rob Jones – Senior Lead Counsel/Chief Negotiator
Kris Townsend – Sr. Labor Administration Manager
Patrick Breit – Sr. Advisor, Financial Planning/Analysis
Tamara Harrison – Sr. Labor Ops Consultant
Carolyn White – Assoc. Labor Ops Consultant
Cristian Chaver – Sr. Mng., Labor Planning/Analytics
Kevin Chang – Labor Planning/Analytics
The AMFA-Southwest Aircraft Maintenance Technician (AMT) Negotiating Committee (the “Committee”) is providing this update to the Membership at Southwest Airlines (“Southwest”). This is the Committee's only official source of negotiating communications.
The Committee held a four-day collective bargaining session (Aug. 31-Sept. 3) with Southwest Airlines in Chicago. The parties continued off-the-record exploratory discussions to determine whether an extension to the current agreement was a viable path. As such, the parties continued operating pursuant to the terms of the Protocol Agreement entered into during the Denver session. As a reminder, either party may, if such exploratory discussions are unsuccessful, terminate the Protocol Agreement by written notice. Once terminated, the parties would proceed away from extension discussions and onto a more comprehensive negotiation process. The Protocol Agreement also ensures that once either side terminates the agreement, everything discussed during the exploratory phase will be without prejudice to and will not affect any future negotiation position.
The parties spent the entire week exchanging and discussing off-the-record extension “supposals” or non-binding proposals. The Company owed the first counter-supposal from where the parties concluded in Denver. After this, the parties exchanged four counter-supposals, and the Company owes a response at the next session. The substance of these supposals was, pursuant to the Protocol Agreement, off-the record. However, the parties made progress with their respective supposals and will continue the exploratory phase during the next session scheduled for the week of October 13, with the location to be determined.
We thank the many members who reached out to support us during this first week of negotiation. Solidarity is our greatest strength. Please do not hesitate to reach out to your ALR if you have any questions.
Fraternally,
AMFA-SWA AMT Negotiating Committee
