OREANDA-NEWS. FedEx Express, a subsidiary of FedEx Corp., has formally requested assistance from the National Mediation Board (NMB) to expedite its ongoing pilot negotiations. The NMB is the U.S. governmental agency that oversees labor agreements for entities covered by the Railway Labor Act (RLA), such as airlines, railroads and express companies.

The company and its pilots, who are represented by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), have been engaged in contract talks for more than a year. The current contract became amendable on February 25, 2013 and the two sides reached a tentative agreement on 20 of the 31 contract sections in September, 2014.

Under the RLA, the terms and conditions of the existing contract between the company and ALPA do not expire until the full multi-step RLA process is exhausted. In the meantime, the progression of negotiations into the mediation stage has no impact on company operations or its ability to provide highly reliable service to customers.

"FedEx Express is simply interested in expediting the negotiation process leading to a contract that is fair and reasonable for all parties," said James R. Parker, executive vice president, air operations, FedEx Express. "The majority of airline contracts require NMB mediation to reach a final agreement, and we believe the time has come for our negotiations to move to that phase."