![\"menzies\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1786566968_978_0x0.jpg\")
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A Menzies Aircraft fueler services an aircraft.<\/p>\n
Menzies Aviation\/MONTY_RAKUSEN<\/p>\n
The fast-growing Transport Workers Union has organized Orlando International Airport aircraft fuelers and mechanics, as employer Menzies voluntarily recognized the union.<\/p>\n
TWU President John Samuelsen said the recognition is the latest move in the union\u2019s drive to recruit members. TWU is the largest union in the airline industry with about airline 80,000 members. It is also among the country\u2019s fastest growing unions, with about 165,000 members, up from about 130,000 in 2017, when Samuelsen took office as international president.<\/p>\n
London-based Menzies is the world\u2019s largest aviation services provider. The company was not immediately available to comment. Menzies and PrimeFlight, a Texas-based aviation support company, both provide contract fueling operations for major airlines in Orlando. Menzies <\/p>\n
\u201cWe organized PrimeFlight fuelers a year ago and we got a contract almost right away,\u201d Samuelsen said Wednesday in an interview. \u201cThey spoke to the Menzies fuelers about the solid victory we achieved and one thing led to another.\u201d PrimeFlight fuelers got a 15% pay raise, vacation pay and guaranteed sick time, TWU said.<\/p>\n
Contract talks with Menzies have not yet been scheduled. \u201cWe will continue to chip away as best we can and get a pay increase at Menzies,\u201d Samuelsen said. <\/p>\n
The work groups are relatively small. Menzies has about 60 fuelers and mechanics in Orlando, while PrimeFlight is slightly larger. <\/p>\n
However, Samuelsen noted that in the past week alone, TWU has gained nearly 400 members, with successful organizing drives for 220 municipal workers in Brick Township, NJ and for about 60 New York City diesel mechanics. <\/p>\n
TWU is also poised to gain about 1,000 flight attendants in the Allegiant\/Sun Country merger. It already represents the 2,000 Allegiant flight attendants, as well as 23,000 flight attendants at Southwest; 7,000 flight attendants at JetBlue and several hundred at Atlas Air.<\/p>\n
TWU is best known for its representation of 40,000 New York City subway workers and for its leadership of American Airlines\u2019 30,000 fleet workers and mechanics, who are jointly represented with the International Association of Machinists. About 18,000 are fleet service. Their contract talks \u201care in a very preliminary stage,\u201d Samuelsen said. \u201cWe\u2019re prepping for the next round, which will kick off in January.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Menzies Aircraft fueler services an aircraft. Menzies Aviation\/MONTY_RAKUSEN The fast-growing Transport Workers Union has organized Orlando International…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[149628,149630,139,141,140,149629],"class_list":["post-369682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-airline-union-adds-orlando-fuelers","tag-john-samuelsen","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-transport-workers-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}