FORT WORTH, Texas – NCUA reported Friday it has agreed to expand the eight-year-old TIP charter granted American Airlines FCU to allow the $6 billion credit union to also serve air transportation workers outside of the airports delineated in the 2004 Trade, Industry and Profession charter awarded by the credit union regulator.
The amended TIP charter will allow the credit union giant to add hundreds of thousands of potential members to the 1.7 million covered under the 2004 TIP charter. The original TIP restricted the credit union to serving airline employees or government employees overseeing air transportation, as well as employees of air freight, air courier, air transport support services and airline food services located at an airport. The expanded TIP does not include that restriction.
The credit union giant maintains branches at most of the nation’s busiest airports, including New York’s Kennedy International, Boston’s Logan International, Los Angeles’s LAX, Chicago’s O’Hare International, Newark, Miami International, San Francisco International and Honolulu International.
The American Air TIP charter does not include non-air transport workers at the airports, like those working at retail shops, hotels, car rental companies or travel agencies.
The TIP charter was introduced by NCUA in 2003 as a way to maintain a common bond for credit union members, even as the proliferation of select employee groups continued to water down the concept of common bond. So far NCUA has granted fewer than 50 TIP charters.
American Airlines, which is based at Dallas Forth Worth Airport, was granted the TIP charter in 2004 as its chief corporate sponsor, AMR Corp., continued to be dragged down by the constant financial problems plaguing the airline industry over the past decade. The credit union’s board decided the charter encompassing the entire air transportation industry would help insulate it from AMR’s “instability and continuing employee reductions.”
