AA lets the ax fall again... 44 more on 3/2/05

[satpak77]

Your buddy would have gotten hired around '93 and then immediately furloughed for about 4 years. AA stopped hiring in '93 and resumed in '98.

yes that would be correct, thanks

just curious, what date of hire does the recent furloughs represent?

 

[densoo]

The flowthrough actually worked for Coex.

And then some! CAL required that if there were to be a flowthrough, then there would be a flowback for all CAL pilots, not just prior Express pilots. This caused a lot of heartburn when pilots who had never been on Express property started showing up there. But the deal with the devil on this was that the Express flowthroughs, when furloughed, would go back to Express with their original date of hire at Express! Yes, these pilots accrued seniority on two different ALPA lists at the same time. Have you ever heard of a better deal? So when former Express pilots were hired to CAL in '98 and furloughed in '03, five years later, they integrated back into the Express seniority roster at '95, '94, etc dates of hire. They immediately had the best lines of flying in the "best bases" (an oxymoron at CAL, I know).

 

[BackSoon05]

I am curious now too as to how far back the furloughs go at AA. I have some friends that have taken 50+% pay cuts (if you include the seat displacements) and it doesn't look like you guys have turned the corner yet. One other question...scope being the way it is industry wide...Does AA have a pay rate for 70-90 seat aircraft? Its not that big a leap down from the F100. I can only hope my company never gets anything bigger than 50 seats...or my career is toast.


(30 year old college educated, married with children "kid" just trying to get a return on my 12 year investment, 23 year dream, and lifelong ambition. 2 more flying jobs and I get a toaster.)

 

[aa73]

CAL and COex had a 'similar' thing, not the same. The flowthrough actually worked for Coex. They got something in the order of several hundred flowed through to CAL (I think around 950?). Eagle got 124 flowed through while AA brought in 5000 pilots.
AA is forecast to have 600+ flowback. Not nearly as equitable nor fair as the CAL/Coex agreement. Definitely a ****ty deal for us, considering current AE Captains will be 7 and 8 year FO's for those flowing back and current FO's are now "trapped under ice".

Your second point is correct. No need to fire at the wrong target.

Jetexas...

Why didn't the flow through work the way it was supposed to? Nobody has been able to answer that question. Not being sarcastic, I really would like to know.

Also, where did you get "AA brought in 5000 pilots..." I believe the total # hired bewteen '98 and '01 was around 3000.

Thanks,
73

 

[aa73]

You can also blame the flowbacks for coming to Eagle and working for Eagle wages. I remember when APA said they would not fly for Eagle wages. Well guess what they are and it is showing the arbitrators that APA pilots will work for cheap. The trend is being set by AMR to have APA pilots fly for Eagle wages. Trends are hard to reverse.

BFC,

Whoever said that was obviously typical of APA caliber. You know the type... invincible, AArogant, etc. A lot of "things" were said back in the booming days.

You cannot blame someone who elects to flow back. They are just exercising a contractual right. Now granted, the flow through vs. flow back #s are disproportionate, and I asked in the above post why there were so few flow throughs. But the bottom line is, the flow back agreement was negotiated with the (very senior) Eagle MEC, and represents an opportunity for someone going to the street. Lacking any other offers for someone wanting to stay in the industry, it offers a reasonable alternative. Most furloughees choose it because of the paid long wait for training, to the order of 4-6 months.

I still think it's a lousy deal for Eagle pilots, which include several friends of mine. Unfortunately that doesn't change the reality. I think most of us go back there just being glad we are still working. I know we have a few that feel like they're "owed something" - they are the exceptions and we don't like them here either.

Regards,
73

 

[aa73]

I am curious now too as to how far back the furloughs go at AA. I have some friends that have taken 50+% pay cuts (if you include the seat displacements) and it doesn't look like you guys have turned the corner yet. One other question...scope being the way it is industry wide...Does AA have a pay rate for 70-90 seat aircraft? Its not that big a leap down from the F100. I can only hope my company never gets anything bigger than 50 seats...or my career is toast.


(30 year old college educated, married with children "kid" just trying to get a return on my 12 year investment, 23 year dream, and lifelong ambition. 2 more flying jobs and I get a toaster.)

Furloughs go back to about 2700 pilots, out of a total of about 13,800.

We don't have a negotiated 70-90 seat pay scale other than the F100. My hunch is that the company probably won't apply the F100 rate if we do get any 90-seaters, they will probably want something along the lines of what JB negotiates - hopefully it will be better than their last payscale that was scrapped. I, however, think that the APA should stand strong on the F100 payscale (86 seats) but knowing the APA they will probably cave.

 

[jetexas]

aa73..

check your PM's.

The 5000 includes TWA. About 3000 AA hired and 2000+ brought in with the TWA merge.

 

[PastFastMover]

Welcome to the AAPA wimp-line for Wednesday, Jan 5. As you are now hearing, we continue to win together by pulling another 44 colleagues from our payroll. Us senior boys that you, the clueless and the scared, keep electing to run this so-called union have been trying to tell you junior pukes for months to find another job. Sinking in yet? We would have liked to get the word out to you sooner but you gots to realize we’ve been out of the country strategizing and such and just didn’t have the time. On the plus side, the timing of these furloughs should present the opportunity for a lot of us to belly up for some Spring Break/Easter OT. Maybe even some premium dollars if we’re lucky. That’s all for today, thanks for calling.

Can a union decide if a company hires or furloughs? Market forces are at work here to the great dismay of the great pilot workforce in the US. When deregulation was first jammed down back in 1978, it was my opinion that the main reason was the gutting of the unions in this business. I am on my 3rd major airline since that time and see what I believe to be the end game of what was conceived back then finally taking place, to all of our detriment.
As far as AA still unfortunately furloughing, how many pilots did TWA have when AA bought them. Has that company been dismantled yet by the number of pilots. I don't know. Would AA still be furloughing major groups of pilots if they had not bought TWA, I don't know. Anyone with any insight that is on the inside over there.

 

[aa73]

Can a union decide if a company hires or furloughs? Market forces are at work here to the great dismay of the great pilot workforce in the US. When deregulation was first jammed down back in 1978, it was my opinion that the main reason was the gutting of the unions in this business. I am on my 3rd major airline since that time and see what I believe to be the end game of what was conceived back then finally taking place, to all of our detriment.
As far as AA still unfortunately furloughing, how many pilots did TWA have when AA bought them. Has that company been dismantled yet by the number of pilots. I don't know. Would AA still be furloughing major groups of pilots if they had not bought TWA, I don't know. Anyone with any insight that is on the inside over there.

Re: the TWA question. It's really anybody's guess as to what would have happened had the merger not taken place. I personally believe that AA would have been furloughing anyway, especially after 9/11. After all we did lose two airplanes, plus 587 two months later. TWA had about 2300 during the merger, we now have about 500 left on the property. The TWA operation is pretty much fully merged into the AA operation, as of last August.

If you want to break it down by numbers per company, AA has furloughed about 1000 "natives" and about 1800 ex TWA pilots. As more furloughs keep happening, 7 out of every 8 furloughs are AA "natives" including yours truly.

We are all disillusioned regardless of where we came from, period.

As far as unions influencing furloughs: All a union really can do is try to mitigate the # of furloughs by exercising certain contractual provisions such as Furlough Stand-in-stead (where a person voluntarily furloughs him/herself early), early retirements, leaves of absences, etc. Most unions discourage the picking up of open time/ overtime, however here at the APA most of the pilots senior to us don't really give a hoot, they are mostly in it for themselves. It is a proven concept that the more pilots stay out of open time, the more the company hurts trying to fill the schedule <WOW WHAT A CONCEPT, LISTEN UP, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE>

Regards,
73

 

[Hoot R. Hunter]

FWIW, prior to the January bloodletting, the last breakdown I saw was approximately 2590 AA pilots are on the street, 45% native, 55% former TWA.

It blows for everyone involved.

Regards from a long-time streetwalker,

 

[Hoot R. Hunter]

.... Most unions discourage the picking up of open time/ overtime, however here at the APA most of the pilots senior to us don't really give a hoot, they are mostly in it for themselves. It is a proven concept that the more pilots stay out of open time, the more the company hurts trying to fill the schedule <WOW WHAT A CONCEPT, LISTEN UP, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE>

73

Welcome to the CRAAPA wimp-line for Friday, January 7. Our members can now come out from under their cribs and freshen up their Pampers. The week has come and gone without the rumored "big announcement". I was pretty certain this was going to be the case as I'm sure the boss would have mentoned something to me after I finished detailing his car the other day at Centrefort. Don't you even worry a little about these silly little fare reductions. As teAAm plAAyers we stand ready and willing to more than offset these revenue losses with givebAAcks of our own. And what the heck, we'll just raise the monthly max a little here, fly a little OT there, throw a few more junior pukes on the junk heap, and it'll all be a wash on the W-2s. Of far more lasting importance is the fact that our agenda to leave no concesssionary stone unturned is gaining unprecendented momentum. I am happy to announce that our BOS and ORD bases have now joined DCA in obtaining the official designation of management domiciles. Well done. That's all for today, thanks for calling.

 

[aa73]

That pretty much sums it up, thanks.

73

 

[jetexas]

It's not just the unions.
Internal memo from the leadership over at that centrefort..

We MUST develop ways to fight those pesky LCC's. We'll cut costs. We'll furlough employees. Most importantly, we MUST NEVER change the iron fisted corporate culture around here to gain trust, instill motivation, promote team effort and allow employees to breathe!

 

[TWA Dude]

We MUST develop ways to fight those pesky LCC's.

The old expression, "If you can't beat 'em; join 'em!" comes to mind.