AA Recalls

[aa73]

What a spineless cop out. I would have much more respect for the individual if they would just be honest and say "I recognize the staple job was wrong, but it benefitted me and I was too morally weak to voice an opinion against it."

You can laugh all you want about that notion, and yes the staple was wropng - several of us on this board recognize that - but the fact remains.... What makes you think that the senior APA leadership listens to the rank and file?

If we had "voiced an opinion against the deal", do you really think they would have given a hoot? Wrong, if anything, THEY would have been laughing at US.

You got screwed by our union leadership - not by us. A lot of us recognize that. Now time to move on. It may soun like a "spineless copout", but what it really is is fact.

v/r,
73

 

[PHX767]

My only advice is sell any aa stock you might have before the first stapled TWA guy gets recalled. That is if aa is still around.

???????

 

[pylut]

You can laugh all you want about that notion, and yes the staple was wropng - several of us on this board recognize that - but the fact remains.... What makes you think that the senior APA leadership listens to the rank and file?

If we had "voiced an opinion against the deal", do you really think they would have given a hoot? Wrong, if anything, THEY would have been laughing at US.

You got screwed by our union leadership - not by us. A lot of us recognize that. Now time to move on. It may soun like a "spineless copout", but what it really is is fact.

Exactly, THEY did it....what could WE do...it was the UNION...
Whatever, rationalize all you want.


Would things have changed if you stood up for what was morally wrong? Who knows I never claimed they would. I merely indicated that then you might be deserving of respect.

 

[AAslag]

TWA dudes, let it go.

This is not healthy. The scum we are after do not post here. Lurk, YES.

We have bigger fish to fry.

Standby and quit bitching to these guys. Please. They are not the enemy.

And as far as the scum we are after? Oh yes, oh yes,..............................

 

[aa73]

Would things have changed if you stood up for what was morally wrong? Who knows I never claimed they would. I merely indicated that then you might be deserving of respect.

Pylut,

Please, humor me a little. I'm curious- what exactly would you have done in our shoes?

Are you so sure that 100% of us were in agreement with what went down? Do you not realize that several of us did not exactly agree with the actions of the APA during the process? And how exactly were we supposed to "stand up" for what was morally wrong? We are dealing with the APA, here, after all! They don't even listen to us with our OWN issues!

And finally - let's say you were on the property at TWA in '86, and you did not agree with how the OZ employees were being treated. What would you have done then? Remember, it was being handled by ALPA - not by the TWA rank and file. What would you, as a rank and file pilot, have done if you didn't agree with your MEC?

 

[XTW]

And finally - let's say you were on the property at TWA in '86, and you did not agree with how the OZ employees were being treated.

Their pilots got DOH, with fences.


X

 

[aa73]

Their pilots got DOH, with fences.


X

I know they did.

But, during the negotiations, did your pilot group know that was going to be the result? Was there a time, during the process - BEFORE the final outcome - where some of you TWAers thought the OZ employees were going to get a raw deal - and if so, what could you - as the rank and file - do about it?

 

[PHX767]

This thread now renamed "The beating of Dead Horses"

Thanks Slag, for your positive comments.

Okay, since we seem to have nothing better to talk about, try this on for size.

What if TW still had the 747 when the aquisition took place?

Hmmm.

Their career expectations would have been to aspire to the 747. AA at that time had the 777 and MD-11 for heavy iron. Which way would the fences have gone, and what do you think the merged list would have looked like?

Just trying that shoe on the other foot to see if it still fits.

 

[pylut]

aa73-
No humoring involved, good questions to ponder.

Two different situations because one was DOH and one was a staple job. I was only part of the staple job, so of course my views are influenced by the results.
To put my self in the shoes of the acquiring airline in each case:
TWA/Ozark merger- This was before my TWA tenure, but I would look at the proposed merger and see if I as an individual thought it was a fair proposal or if it was a malicious slam of the weaker group. I don't think I would ever feel ashamed in the future explaining that our two airlines were merged DOH.

TWA/aa- Again from the shoes of the acquiring airline. I don't think I could look myself in the mirror knowing that my pilot group and union officials had crammed down one of the worst integration shams ever. I would feel ashamed for my union, ashamed for my pilot group and ashamed for myself. So what to do huh? Well, one option would be to do nothing and bemoan the fact that it's just me I can't do anything...it's all "them" that are doing it. I would like to think I would be a little more proactive. There are plenty of ways to get your voice out. Contact your union officials and put them on notice that your pilot group will not stand for the attrocitry in progress. Talk with your fellow pilots, talk with company officials. Post informational flyers, emails, mailers. Speak directly to the merger committee. Those are all very easy non agressive means to make your voice heard. Oh yeah, but we're worried they might "laugh at you". You're right a little laughter would be way to much to endure as the cost for your honor. There are many options to making yourself heard, but that of course is only if you have any conviction to what you are saying. Other wise it is way easier to just give some lip service years down the road even though secretly you are very pleased with the decimation of those other guys careers.

 

[aa73]

There are plenty of ways to get your voice out. Contact your union officials and put them on notice that your pilot group will not stand for the attrocitry in progress. Talk with your fellow pilots, talk with company officials. Post informational flyers, emails, mailers. Speak directly to the merger committee. Those are all very easy non agressive means to make your voice heard. Oh yeah, but we're worried they might "laugh at you". You're right a little laughter would be way to much to endure as the cost for your honor. There are many options to making yourself heard, but that of course is only if you have any conviction to what you are saying. Other wise it is way easier to just give some lip service years down the road even though secretly you are very pleased with the decimation of those other guys careers.

Pylut. Little by little you are cracking the code.

Your points are excellent and would probably work with an ALPA affiliation and an ALPA to ALPA merger.

But when one airline is ALPA and the other is not, if the pilot group - ESPECIALLY the AA pilot group - tries to get involved with politics being managed by a few greedy senior non-ALPA union members, they will not listen to us. Enter the APA leadership. EVEN with our own issues, the APA will not listen to the rank and file, and do whatever it pleases.

So we could have done everything that you've mentioned - and the net effect would have been zero. Recall John Darrah? Sure - only to be replaced by someone else who would have dreamed up some other integration that would have shafted you. Post fliers? Sure - only to find them taken down by some APA "communications officer" who doesn't agree. Speak with the merger comittee? They wouldn't give us the time of day.

Pylut, you are asking fair questions - but you don't realize that the APA pretty much does as it pleases. This is not the cozy TWA MEC that was really a voice for the TWA pilots. This my friend is a good ol' boy association that will consistently go behind the backs of the AA pilots to get what they want. You're talking about a union where pilots try to get others fired for slamming them on a message board!! (yes, it happened - and the guy that got the other guy fired was the Grievance comittee chairman!)

I'm not going to argue that the staple was wrong, because it was. And I'll also admit that I did feel pretty ashamed by how they treated you guys. Yes, it is my union and I pay dues- but the APA leadership most definitely does not speak for me. And guess what - if I don't agree with something they do, there's not much I can do about it.

I admire your openness, and I believe it comes from your pilot culture, which was one of collaboration, working together, and friendship. I wish we had that at AA, but we don't. And that's why your ideas wouldn't work here. The APA leadership/merger comittee was gonna do as it pleased, regardless of the comments/efforts coming from more than a few of us during the process -including yours truly. (Had several friends at TW from having graduated from Parks.)

And finally, no I am not pleased with the decimation of your careers, I am not one to take pleasure in another's misfortunes. The same thing could very well happen to me. But I have consistently said, over and over again, that this merger should have gone to arbitration. But it didn't, and we the rank and file had our hands tied.

v/r,
73

 

[AA717driver]

I will say that the TWA MEC did the OZ deal in the back room and none of the rank and file knew about it until the ink was dry.

MANY TWA pilots (few of the them were left on the property in 2000) felt OZ got too good of a deal.

My third and final point is that if DOH did not suit the TWA MEC at the time, there was no way in He!! the OZ guys would have gotten it. The OZ pilots were a very young and junior (compared to the TWA guys) group. In 1985, TWA had guys who had been FE's for 15 years with a 5-10 year furlough thrown in there. OZ had CA's with less seniority. The "get out of MY seat, junior" mentality existed in the minds of many at that time.

To the TWA pilots of 1986, most of whom had gotten hired when TWA was the dominant carrier in the world (sound familiar?), OZ was a bush-league operation who hired pilots who couldn't get hired at a major (again, sound familiar?). That was their justification for imposing whatever kind of merger agreement the TWA MEC desired.

The TWA/OZ integration would have been perfect if they had fenced those who were CA's the day before the merger was announced without restriction. As it was, the fences expired after two years and there was a bump and flush of many CA's. That was wrong.

That bump and flush combined with the 50% pay cut imposed by Icahn destroyed many OZ (and TWA, too) pilot's lives. They never forgot and few have gotten over it.

I tried to tell my fellow TWA'ers that the AA merger would suck regardless of the integration. Having witnessed horrible mergers at Air Wisconsin and TWA/OZ, my prediction has obviously come true. No group is going to be 100% happy with ANY integration (even the DAL/Western merger generated some bad feelings ).

I have many former friends who are being slowly destroyed because of this merger. I got lucky when I got laid off but many are stuck at Eagle (a good deal for them at the expense of several hundred Eagle guys) and their only hope is for recall.

None of the AA guys here had a hand in the integration. None even knew about it as it was happening and none could have stopped the train by standing in the middle of the tracks shouting "stop".TC

 

[Draginass]

TWA pilots (ALPA) should have said "NO" to the integration plan. They didn't. They accepted it. Quit whinning.

At the announcement, the champagne corks were popping in the TWA crew rooms (because everyone there knew TWA was at the end of its rope), but in the crew rooms at AA, the mood was, "Oh no, not again." The APA knew what the outcome was going to be . . . . overcapacity, a shutdown of that capacity, and then be stuck with a bunch of excess employees. It was obvious at the time of the announcement that the economy was tanking and spending over a billion dollars for a almost dead airline was not going to work. How big was AA right before the merger? How big is it now? The integration of TWA pilots was one of the few smart things that the APA has done. A bunch of TWA pilots had their jobs extended extended a few years more that they would have otherwise. The whinning is getting tiresome for something that the TWA pilots could have REFUSED. I guess its easier to blame the APA and vilify AA pilots than it is to face the facts of the situation.

 

[pylut]

So what I am getting from the responses here is this:
Acting in a moral fashion with accountability for ones actions only applies if you are in the vast majority and you are assured of the desired outcome. Speaking out against an injustice is only appropriate if it is viewed favorably by the mob you happen to be a part of. Interesting.

I don't subscribe to that. If it's right it's right. It doesn't matter if your the only one standing on the tracks or are joined by other like minded individuals.
Will it change any outcomes? Irrelevant. It probably wouldn't as the vast majority did not have the character necessary to do right. However, speaking up even if it changed nothing would be enough, you would have done right, and you would still have your dignity.

 

[pylut]

Dragin-
Check your facts, are you certain the integration was accepted by TWA?
Interesting that you know the events in both the TWA and aa crew rooms, yet apparently know nothing abouth the "integration"

 

[AA717driver]

The integration was not accepted by the TWA MEC. There is no "four-party-agreement". I'm sure you know the significance of that, Dragin... TC

 

[Vastly Underemp]

Draginass, perhaps you should remove the "dragin" from your moniker.

The TWA pilots did not accept the "s**t sandwich" that was handed to us.
The purchase price was recouped within 1 year by the sale of Worldspan and the acquisition of slots at LGA and DCA. Many on Wall St said the price was a steal.

It's amazing how brave and inaccurate some get when they can hide behind a keyboard

 

[aa73]

So what I am getting from the responses here is this:
Acting in a moral fashion with accountability for ones actions only applies if you are in the vast majority and you are assured of the desired outcome. Speaking out against an injustice is only appropriate if it is viewed favorably by the mob you happen to be a part of. Interesting.

I don't subscribe to that. If it's right it's right. It doesn't matter if your the only one standing on the tracks or are joined by other like minded individuals.
Will it change any outcomes? Irrelevant. It probably wouldn't as the vast majority did not have the character necessary to do right. However, speaking up even if it changed nothing would be enough, you would have done right, and you would still have your dignity.

Your statement is correct in every sense, and I am proud to say that I've maintained my dignity several times over by speaking my mind with other AA pilots over the outcome of this merger. Almost every time, I am accused of being a TWA supporter, and yet I still maintain my opinion that all integrations should go to arbitration when there is disagreement. This relieves both pilot groups of said accountability.

 

[AAflyer]

well said AA73...


AAflyer

 

[WyoHerkdriver]

Why won't you guys just move on? Being a former TWA guy myself, I am not happy about the way things turned out, but I have chosen to move on. There is nothing that can be done about the integration now and the only recourse remaining is the lawsuit against ALPA. Now, back to the original topic of recalls. With the recent announcement of 27 additional aircraft being parked and the likelyhood of PBS becoming a reality, I think it is pretty safe to say that recalls are probably at least two years away. If Eagle starts taking delivery of new aircraft all bets are off and we may never see recalls at AA. I hope I am wrong, but things do not bode well right now for those that are furloughed.

 

[aa73]

Herkdriver,

"Never" is a loooong time. Believe me, AA will have to recall eventually.

The 27 extra jets they are parking starting this month is - precisely - because we don't have the pilot/f/a manning to staff the usual summer expansion. Had they gone ahead with the expansion, they would have recalled by now.

All my sources tell me that they- WILL - plan on a summer expansion next year (2007.) In that case we would have to see recalls for that - even with work rule enhancements/PBS. The figure I consistently hear is to the tune of 600 pilots.

If you wanna spread some bad news, hear this - they just voted in a new DFW chairman who is a total pro company dude. That does not bode well for upcoming Sec 6 negotiations.