[room500]

It is also illegal for them to strike without going through mediation, etc. Pilots are allowed to vote to go on strike at any time (and they can have picket lines as if they were on strike) but they cannot stop showing up for work.

Pilots are one of the few professions that are covered under the Railway Labor Act, so federal mediators have lots of power to reach an agreement between airlines and pilots

[Analemma_]

Right, that’s what I mean: pilots are not legally permitted to stop showing up for work. They could stop anyway in an illegal strike, which is what the ATCs did in 1981, but this would be a very high-risk gamble.