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

[TWA Dude]

Wyo: I certainly have no right to deny you your frustration. I'm only trying to point out my belief that much of the anger at the industry right now comes from unrealistic expectations. Yes, CHQ and TSA are growing (and BTW I've flown for BOTH) but they are not the reason why AA is still furloughing. They do pay slave wages but then that's always been the case so why should it be any different now? They fly jets but it's still an entry level job even though it becomes a career position for some (by choice or otherwise). Airline management does what management is supposed to do: manage costs. Regional airlines are a false economy anyway in that they live or die by their codeshares. It doesn't make sense to me to look at regional growth enviously. When the economy will support it the legacies will grow too.

These may not be comforting thoughts for you but they save me from bitterness. I am indeed lucky. A year ago I was gunning for ATA. Some say that everything happens for a reason but I say hogwash. Sometimes poop just happens. Good luck to you. There are still reasonably good jobs out there and eventually you'll get one.

 

[semperfido]

I am not really sure that I follow you. All I know is that by March, there will be nearly 3000 AA pilots on furlough. Meanwhile, Trans States, Chautaqua and Eagle continue to grow and get larger equipment (while paying slave wages).

there will probably be few recalls. the "slave" wages are in fact the market wages now. it is a result of competition, pure and simple. supply and demand.

 

[BFC Lone Wolf]

Plenty of room at American Eagle for the furloughs, we are displacing our captiains to make room for AA pilots. Displacing 8 year captains for junior AA guys. hmmmmmm

 

[aa73]

Plenty of room at American Eagle for the furloughs, we are displacing our captiains to make room for AA pilots. Displacing 8 year captains for junior AA guys. hmmmmmm

I highly doubt all furloughees flow back, in fact the # I've been told was about half. **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED**ty situation for the Eagle pilots but not unique, CAL and Coex had the same thing.

I think if you are ticked off about it you should blame your union and APA, not the flowbacks, they are just exercising a contractual provision.

 

[aa73]

I highly doubt all furloughees flow back, in fact the # I've been told was about half. **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED**ty situation for the Eagle pilots but not unique, CAL and Coex had the same thing.

I think if you are ticked off about it you should blame your union and APA, not the flowbacks, they are just exercising a contractual provision.

The "Censored" word of the day is $hitty...

Sorry 'bout that...

 

[satpak77]

good luck to AA guys

good luck to everyone, my former CFI when I got my private went to AA in 1994-ish. I have had sporadic contact with him, but I believe he is furloughed also.

Another good college buddy, age 33, college degree, yadda yadda, a SF-340 Captain at Eagle, is likely a career Saab driver for a long time, unless he gets hired out of the AA system.

Interestingly, he told me that back in the day, when American WAS hiring, it was faster to get hired by AA via "applying from the outside" than by flowthru. Some senior Eagle Capts who flowed thru sometimes met Eagle FO's who also were recently hired by the "external hire" method......don't know if he was BS-ing me over some beers, who knows

 

[aa73]

good luck to everyone, my former CFI when I got my private went to AA in 1994-ish. I have had sporadic contact with him, but I believe he is furloughed also.

Another good college buddy, age 33, college degree, yadda yadda, a SF-340 Captain at Eagle, is likely a career Saab driver for a long time, unless he gets hired out of the AA system.

Interestingly, he told me that back in the day, when American WAS hiring, it was faster to get hired by AA via "applying from the outside" than by flowthru. Some senior Eagle Capts who flowed thru sometimes met Eagle FO's who also were recently hired by the "external hire" method......don't know if he was BS-ing me over some beers, who knows

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.

Hiring on with Eagle was always the long way to AA. Rumor was, AMR didn't want to absorb training costs associated with hiring on with two AMR companies. And if one decided to wait for the "slow-through" it was about 10-15 years. The flowthroughs in my '00 new hire class were hired at Eagle in '86.

Look for an additional, if several, more round of furloughs this year. The end is nowhere in sight. Our union is a joke. Fares keep coming down, routes keep getting transferred to regionals, incidents keep happening... And I say this optimistically.

 

[jetexas]

I highly doubt all furloughees flow back, in fact the # I've been told was about half. **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED**ty situation for the Eagle pilots but not unique, CAL and Coex had the same thing.

I think if you are ticked off about it you should blame your union and APA, not the flowbacks, they are just exercising a contractual provision.

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.

 

[BFC Lone Wolf]

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.

 

[mach zero]

It is indeed sickening seeing what is happening at AA as well as most legacy airlines. Seeing AA pilots continue to be furloughed three and a half years after 9/11 is hard to believe. What is even worse is that while AA continues to furlough, Trans States, Chautaqua and Eagle continue to hire 21 year old kids to do basically the same thing on the same routes for just a fraction of the pay that the AA pilots enjoyed. What is even harder to fathom is that these lousy "feeder airlines" still have no difficulty finding 21 year old kids that are not only willing, but eager to fly a regional jet for $18,000 a year. Sorry to be so negative, but I can't help but feel bitter about what has happened and what is still happening at AA as well as the other legacy airlines.

Yes sir it's all those civilian background 21 year old Eaglets who are ruining AA. I guess the 40 something ex-military fighter now Eagle pilot I just met hadn't heard that Eagle was for 21 year olds only.

 

[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,