The longtime leader of the Philadelphia pilot base, who has been an officer for three pilot unions and has never hesitated to express outspoken views on contract matters, will step down Tuesday.
“It’s not by choice,” said Paul DiOrio, an Airbus A320 first officer with 33 years at American and US Airways who is leaving because the Allied Pilots Association limits officers to four consecutive terms. “I love doing it,” he said. “I would have stayed longer if I could have.”
DiOrio has led Philadelphia pilots since 2013. The last nine years were with APA, which represents pilots at American, which merged with US Airways in 2013. Before that, he spent five years as Philadelphia chairman for the US Airways Airline Pilots Association, which represented US Airways pilots after a 2005 merger with America West. “I’m honored that US Airways and American pilots have consistently had confidence in my abilities,” he said.
Under DiOrio’s leadership, Philadelphia pilots called for the resignation of American CEO Doug Parker in January, 2020, as the share price fell and operations lagged peers; repeated the call in September 2021, after the industry’s operational failure during the first summer of pandemic recovery, and urged young pilots to seek jobs at Delta rather than American in February 2023. It was all part of contract negotiations, “meant as a message to management, to put pressure on them,” DiOrio said Thursday. .
In fact, DiOrio has been a base leader for three pilot unions. Before the US Airways Boston base closed, he was Boston representative for the US Airways chapter of the Air Line Pilots Association from 1999 to 2003. “It takes a special kind of person to serve three unions and for such a long time,” said APA spokesman Dennis Tajer. “You have to be passionate about it because the phone rings a lot. You’re on for 24 hours.”
A Boston area native, DiOrio, began flying for US Airways in 1989 as a Pittsburgh-based flight engineer on the Boeing 727. He was subsequently based in Charlotte, Boston and Philadelphia. He became involved in union work in 1992, when his flight pay left out 18 minutes he had worked, which led him to become involved in grievance work. “They should have paid me,” he said. “I’ve been a thorn in their side ever since.”
USAPA was formed in 2008 as US Airways pilots left ALPA because it would not back them in a seniority dispute with America West pilots following the merger. DiOrio became chairman of the USAPA negotiating committee. “I wasted four years of my life,” he said. “At the table the company said we couldn’t get a contract until the seniority dispute was resolved, and the Ninth Circuit court said they couldn’t resolve the seniority dispute until we had a contract. The company said no to everything. Looking back, they did it to save money.”
The dispute between US Airways pilots and America West pilots was a bitter one, but DiOrio says it is now forgotten. He has become particularly friendly with pilot leaders in Phoenix, he said. “Now we socialize and go to dinner and we agree on everything,” he said. “We joke about that.”
DiOrio looks back on a career that encompasses the airline industry’s many ups and downs of the 21st century: terrorist attacks, bankruptcies, a recession, and a pandemic. He was furloughed in 1991 for six months, in 1998 for one month and in 2003 for three and a half years. During his third furlough, he earned a law degree from New England Law, and he passed the Massachusetts bar. But for now, at 60, he intends to keep flying.
A career choice has been to remain a first officer. This provides seniority in choosing trips and a higher quality of life. “When I was hired as an engineer, the old captains – I call them old, but they were my age today – always said how they missed seeing their kids grow up,” he said. “That stuck in my mind.” He has a 14-year-old son and says, “I never missed anything. There’s a small group of us – quality of life first officers.”
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