Word: mohawk
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Died. Robert E. Peach, 51, former head of Mohawk Airlines; of self-inflicted gunshot wounds; in Clinton, N.Y. A World War II Navy bomber pilot who won two Distinguished Flying Crosses. Peach joined tiny Robinson Airlines (three planes) in 1945. After Robinson changed its name to Mohawk, he was elected president, and later board chairman. The driving force behind Mohawk's rapid rise to become the nation's 4th largest regional carrier. Peach was also the first president of a U.S. scheduled airline to hire a black stewardess...
Since Nov. 12, ALPA has been on strike against Mohawk Airlines of Utica, N.Y., grounding the line's short-haul flights to 38 mainly Northern and Eastern airports. Money is only one of the issues. Mohawk has offered to pay its captains-who now average $2,625 per month-a monthly wage of $2,985 by 1972. The union wants an average $3,100 per month immediately, to bring the pay of Mohawk pilots up to the scale paid by larger trunk lines. Beyond that, ALPA insists that Mohawk meet no fewer than 80 demands-from shorter hours...
Competition from Cars. Mohawk has lost money every year since 1966 and showed a deficit of $3,600,000 in the first ten months of 1970. The line has been particularly hurt by recession. Cost-conscious companies have discouraged air travel on business and, says Mohawk President Russell V. Stephenson, "our routes are short enough that nowadays we find ourselves in direct competition with the telephone and the highways...
...Mohawk has sought to cope by trimming its schedules and turning over lightly traveled routes to the largely nonunionized air taxi lines, the so-called "third-level carriers." The union is worried about the trend, and estimates, perhaps with some exaggeration, that 1,000 ALPA jobs have been lost through such transfers. But as Piedmont Airlines President Tom Davis puts it, "ALPA itself is responsible for pricing us out of the small-town market. We can't afford to take those crews in those jets into the smaller towns, so we are turning them over to the third-level...
...issue is not settled soon, Mohawk could go out of business. Last week the line announced that it would seek to "restructure" its debts and obtain "modifications" of some $3,000,000 in various interest and note payments due in January. It has already deferred a Dec. 1 interest payment on a note of $10 million. "We'll make it," says Mohawk's Stephenson, who has taken a 75% salary cut -to $15,000 a year-for the duration. "We won't go under." Yet the two sides are so far apart that no one expects...