AA717driver
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AA Recalls
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uke: TC
pkober
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LAXSaabdude
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Not true. APA came up with a plan to limit displacements to 125, but give unlimited new vacancies to APA. At the time we were still taking deliveries, so it would have represented a significant overall increase in the number of flowbacks.AA717driver said:
Furthermore, it was never offered to the Eagle MEC. It was crafted in a shady backroom deal with AA and APA, with Eagle management or Eagle MEC never present. We found out about it as the ink was drying.
LAXSaabdude.
I wish.......
Back in 1986 I flew for Eastern Metro Express and we voted in ALPA.
I may be wrong on this, and if so, I stand corrected, but did not Metro Airlines also have an Eagle contract?
I seem to remember that the whole Metro pilot group (4 commuter airlines) voted in ALPA and tried to get the lists merged.
Besides that, I was around when AA signed an Eagle contract with Executive in SJU, and I am fairly sure them guys were not APA.
Don't worry about the spanking, I am a big guy and take it...
As for my initial response to your posting: I was under the influence..And that is a fact.
You sound bitter, but I would too if I had spent 19 years with Eagle.
As for APA wanting to merge the lists: Unless things have changed the last few years, APA was all for it.
CSY, Cheers. Eastern Metro was an Eastern contract carrier. Metro in Dallas was an AA contract carrier. The first wholly owned Eagle was a Air Midwest a contract AA commuter. Not long after they bought they bought the next contract carrier Eagle, AvAir or aka Air Virginia. Sometime either before or after that they voted in APA. Of course APA wanted one list after the sh!t hit the fan and they started seeing their buddies on the street. I am not really that bitter. I do have a little heart burn the way we were treated. I still hear it from AA guys on my jumpseat, how bad they hate Eagle. I let them barf the garbage, then let them know they just got a jumpseat from a former Eagle guy. I have moved on. I am quite happy to not be at AMR. Next time you drink, I'll buy...
Roger on that Mr. Tom.
Yeah, I remember Eagle back in them days.
Got some kind of offer to fly Eagle jet a few years ago as part of the flowback-deal, but declined....ORD reserve, crashpad and all that.
Then the unhappy F/Os....Nah, life is to short.
Did the freightdog thing instead.
Good timing, now in the middle of it.
Yeah, I remember Eagle back in them days.
Got some kind of offer to fly Eagle jet a few years ago as part of the flowback-deal, but declined....ORD reserve, crashpad and all that.
Then the unhappy F/Os....Nah, life is to short.
Did the freightdog thing instead.
Good timing, now in the middle of it.
LAXSaabdude said:
Exactly. Don't forget the Eagle and AA billboard on hwy 360 in Arlington..."Unity". There was a "Unity march" to HQ. Alot of talk of merging. I viewed it as a trojan horse. Sure enough there was a sudden 180, the 'merge' was forgotten and APA tried to take ALL future captain upgrades away from Eagle. This went way above and beyond what letter 3 (flow agreement) allowed for. In the end, Eagle ALPA was the only one who fought this and actually won. Letter 3 was adhered to.
AA717driver
A simpler time...
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LAXSaab--APA discussed the flowback with the Eagle MEC on the topic of limiting the total number of flowbacks. The MEC made so many demands (improved seniority numbers for flowthroughs, etc.) that were onerous and unacceptable to APA, they were intentionally excluded from the discussions with AA.
The APA's agreement with AA limited the TOTAL number of flowbacks to 125. (There have been around 200 displacements so far but this is the result of the same group of 40-50 Eagle pilots bidding, being awarded and subsequently displaced from new aircraft positions.)
The Eagle MEC was upset with being excluded from the discussions (for the above reasons) and filed a grievance. At that point, APA said fine and allowed the grievance to proceed.
Arbitrator Kasher ruled and the rest is history.
The Eagle MEC cost the Eagle pilots a couple hundred CA seats by their actions. It's unfortunate.TC
The APA's agreement with AA limited the TOTAL number of flowbacks to 125. (There have been around 200 displacements so far but this is the result of the same group of 40-50 Eagle pilots bidding, being awarded and subsequently displaced from new aircraft positions.)
The Eagle MEC was upset with being excluded from the discussions (for the above reasons) and filed a grievance. At that point, APA said fine and allowed the grievance to proceed.
Arbitrator Kasher ruled and the rest is history.
The Eagle MEC cost the Eagle pilots a couple hundred CA seats by their actions. It's unfortunate.TC
AA717driver
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Interesting take from STL...
Where is my future?
This is a question I think that is on the minds of most pilots at AA either working or furloughed. I wish I had an answer for you. The direction and vision of where American Airlines will be in the future is unclear to me and since our careers seem to follow what our employers do as pilots in the airline industry I sense any real vision about where your future lies is just as cloudy.
I do know one thing; recent events have had an ominous impact on where I think we are headed. Over the last year there have been a number of articles written in the media about how American Airlines is improving, the airline business is improving, the cash on hand is improving, the debt level is getting better, the fares are going up, the price of oil is going down, etc. Everyone in the industry wants a breather and the PR spin from AMR is going full tilt. There have been predictions that AMR will even be profitable this year.
All of the good news should lead you to believe things are getting better and there really is a vision for the future of AMR. Wall Street Journal Online for April 17th includes this quote from Gerard Arpey, “The key when you are in rough water. Don’t ever take an oar out of the water”, he said, “Always have a destination. Don’t let the river take you.” Somewhere in all of that one would assume Gerard knows where he is headed. That vision seems to be a closely guarded secret. I have had Gerard directly in front of me and asked him personally. “Pull together…..Win together” is a slogan not a vision, what I really want to know is what this company looks like in three years, five years and ten years down the road or at least what AMR Senior Management believes it will look like. So far no one I have talked to can show me what that vision is. I sit on the board of the union, I stay plugged into the public comments the company makes, I talk to my fellow representatives and the union officers and still the corporate vision is not clearly stated. If you feel there is a clear vision drop me a note and explain it to me would you?
Summertime Capacity to Shrink
In fact it is the company’s intention to reduce domestic capacity year over year by 4.5% this coming summer. Management feels they just can’t make any money in the world’s largest market. They explain it all away by saying analysis of past summertime flying did not justify the ramp up to capture the revenue.
I recently attended a recurrent training class where Captain Hetterman joined the class to answer questions pilots might have. I think it is great that he does this and as one might have guessed most of the questions rather than centering on flight operations are focused on the health and direction of the company. Captain Hetterman repeats most of the spin coming out of corporate headquarters.
The point they are trying to make is that they recognize the shrinking is painful but you must first shrink for a short time until you are profitable and then you can grow again. I am totally perplexed by the execution of that concept here at American. While I agree that in times of initial economic shocks to the industry it is important to match capacity to demand and shrink your flying quickly for a short period of time let’s face it; American Airlines has been shrinking for 5 years with no end in sight.
This is a long term trend that we are experiencing here as employees. The real goal should be to lower our unit costs. The two ways to do that is lower your costs and fly more units for the same cost at the same time. Instead what we have going on in the old shrink to profitability game plan is an attempt to reduce the unprofitable flying and cut the infrastructure at a faster rate. Good luck as I can name no airline that has pulled that one off.
Management Highlights Cost Reductions
Keeping the street, the shareholders and the employees focused on the great strides this company has made in so far as a cost reduction is important to management. Certainly reducing hundreds of millions in costs outside of our labor contracts is important work. In most cases I would be very comforted by this but here at American I am not. This company is the most xenophobic place I have ever seen. Their fear of outside influence is renowned and clearly demonstrated by the recent rehiring of Tom Horton a past American CFO to the job of CFO and the reshuffling of a large number of management positions all going to longtime American managers.
The management structure is totally devoid of any new talent and it has been that way for a very, very long time. That is what colors my perspective about cost reductions here. This team is not a new group of senior managers cleaning up other’s messes it is a long term management team finally doing the job it was hired to do. While I am glad they are doing it in my mind it hardly calls for applause.
The Financial Are Getting Better Aren’t They?
The numbers have been getting better but there are still several very large troubling issues out there. One of the biggest in my mind is replacement airframes. American Airlines looks at the acquisition of new aircraft as a 30 year asset. With roughly 800 aircraft at the mainline you need to buy or lease between 25 and 30 aircraft per year just to keep your average fleet age the same. American has only taken a handful of aircraft over the last five years and has no intention that I know of in taking any new aircraft in the next few years.
Like those people that buy hotels and never replace the carpets, and buy new sheets and towels they are starving the actual money earning assets of capital expenditures. Sure the bottom line looks better short term because you do not have the entire attendant costs of bringing new aircraft into the fleet nor the outlay of money aircraft require. What you are doing is slowly driving you costs higher as maintenance costs soar the older an airplane gets and you miss out on the fuel efficiency new aircraft would bring.
Other Legacy Carrier Costs
While I might be negative on what has been going on here at American over the past few years one line of thinking that I am not buying into is the one about how all of the other legacy carriers have reduced their costs in bankruptcy to below Americans and thus we are once again behind the eight ball to these folks.
Bankruptcy is not about how all of the stakeholders, creditors and employees join hands, sing Kum-Ba-Ya and create a lean mean competitor. Bankruptcy is about everyone forced to the table and trying their hardest to do the least that they can do.
That seems to have proven itself out again when you look at the United data from the PLI study of last fall. They have no domestic work rules and yet they are not very productive. You can force W2 cuts and work rule changes on a work force but they are still running a crappy airline.
Don’t look for any stunning turnarounds in that bunch for a long time, if ever.
PUP and Management Compensation
You read from yesterday’s blast as to how management is richly compensating itself here at American to the tune of roughly $100 million this year alone for bonuses. While they have changed the payout to include both cash and stock the bottom line transfer of wealth to these folks for doing a job they should have been doing all along is very disheartening. Remember, this is not a one time event. Next year if unchanged, the payout will be even more. Clearly to me this management is interested in the short term and not what American Airlines will look like 10 years from now.
Final Thoughts
I am repeatedly asked out on the line what I think the future here at AA will hold and when we will start recalling those who are furloughed. Until American gains its competitiveness standing back I don’t think any significant thing will happen on the upside. Last September I wrote an article I called Why Great Companies Fail . It probably generated more responses to any other thing I have written both complementary and critical.
If you recall the main premise was that when faced with market disruptors either technical or low priced in nature a very common response is for the once great company to cede the low margin product and try to move up market to where their margins are better. In the meantime the financials of the company ceding the low margin business actually improve for a short time until the tough competitor decides to come after the margins in the next market level. We have watched how low cost carriers moved into the domestic market and once the margins there were lowered acquired the aircraft to go after the trans-con market. Today, the trans-con market is no longer the provider of rich profits to American it once was but rather another low margin or losing proposition.
It is common knowledge that Southwest’s new aircraft are coming delivered with over water equipment. They are also telling their employees that they will continue to expand over the next 5 years at least. Anyone want to bet me that they are not looking at Mexico, Latin America, Canada or the Caribbean? After all it is the next market level attainable after the US Trans-Con market.
I think our management has figured this all out and now that they have a way to take hundreds of millions out of the coffers over the next few years they are focused on the short term outlook rather than on what American Airlines will look like in 10 years and certainly where your future is.
Doug
Where is my future?
This is a question I think that is on the minds of most pilots at AA either working or furloughed. I wish I had an answer for you. The direction and vision of where American Airlines will be in the future is unclear to me and since our careers seem to follow what our employers do as pilots in the airline industry I sense any real vision about where your future lies is just as cloudy.
I do know one thing; recent events have had an ominous impact on where I think we are headed. Over the last year there have been a number of articles written in the media about how American Airlines is improving, the airline business is improving, the cash on hand is improving, the debt level is getting better, the fares are going up, the price of oil is going down, etc. Everyone in the industry wants a breather and the PR spin from AMR is going full tilt. There have been predictions that AMR will even be profitable this year.
All of the good news should lead you to believe things are getting better and there really is a vision for the future of AMR. Wall Street Journal Online for April 17th includes this quote from Gerard Arpey, “The key when you are in rough water. Don’t ever take an oar out of the water”, he said, “Always have a destination. Don’t let the river take you.” Somewhere in all of that one would assume Gerard knows where he is headed. That vision seems to be a closely guarded secret. I have had Gerard directly in front of me and asked him personally. “Pull together…..Win together” is a slogan not a vision, what I really want to know is what this company looks like in three years, five years and ten years down the road or at least what AMR Senior Management believes it will look like. So far no one I have talked to can show me what that vision is. I sit on the board of the union, I stay plugged into the public comments the company makes, I talk to my fellow representatives and the union officers and still the corporate vision is not clearly stated. If you feel there is a clear vision drop me a note and explain it to me would you?
Summertime Capacity to Shrink
In fact it is the company’s intention to reduce domestic capacity year over year by 4.5% this coming summer. Management feels they just can’t make any money in the world’s largest market. They explain it all away by saying analysis of past summertime flying did not justify the ramp up to capture the revenue.
I recently attended a recurrent training class where Captain Hetterman joined the class to answer questions pilots might have. I think it is great that he does this and as one might have guessed most of the questions rather than centering on flight operations are focused on the health and direction of the company. Captain Hetterman repeats most of the spin coming out of corporate headquarters.
The point they are trying to make is that they recognize the shrinking is painful but you must first shrink for a short time until you are profitable and then you can grow again. I am totally perplexed by the execution of that concept here at American. While I agree that in times of initial economic shocks to the industry it is important to match capacity to demand and shrink your flying quickly for a short period of time let’s face it; American Airlines has been shrinking for 5 years with no end in sight.
This is a long term trend that we are experiencing here as employees. The real goal should be to lower our unit costs. The two ways to do that is lower your costs and fly more units for the same cost at the same time. Instead what we have going on in the old shrink to profitability game plan is an attempt to reduce the unprofitable flying and cut the infrastructure at a faster rate. Good luck as I can name no airline that has pulled that one off.
Management Highlights Cost Reductions
Keeping the street, the shareholders and the employees focused on the great strides this company has made in so far as a cost reduction is important to management. Certainly reducing hundreds of millions in costs outside of our labor contracts is important work. In most cases I would be very comforted by this but here at American I am not. This company is the most xenophobic place I have ever seen. Their fear of outside influence is renowned and clearly demonstrated by the recent rehiring of Tom Horton a past American CFO to the job of CFO and the reshuffling of a large number of management positions all going to longtime American managers.
The management structure is totally devoid of any new talent and it has been that way for a very, very long time. That is what colors my perspective about cost reductions here. This team is not a new group of senior managers cleaning up other’s messes it is a long term management team finally doing the job it was hired to do. While I am glad they are doing it in my mind it hardly calls for applause.
The Financial Are Getting Better Aren’t They?
The numbers have been getting better but there are still several very large troubling issues out there. One of the biggest in my mind is replacement airframes. American Airlines looks at the acquisition of new aircraft as a 30 year asset. With roughly 800 aircraft at the mainline you need to buy or lease between 25 and 30 aircraft per year just to keep your average fleet age the same. American has only taken a handful of aircraft over the last five years and has no intention that I know of in taking any new aircraft in the next few years.
Like those people that buy hotels and never replace the carpets, and buy new sheets and towels they are starving the actual money earning assets of capital expenditures. Sure the bottom line looks better short term because you do not have the entire attendant costs of bringing new aircraft into the fleet nor the outlay of money aircraft require. What you are doing is slowly driving you costs higher as maintenance costs soar the older an airplane gets and you miss out on the fuel efficiency new aircraft would bring.
Other Legacy Carrier Costs
While I might be negative on what has been going on here at American over the past few years one line of thinking that I am not buying into is the one about how all of the other legacy carriers have reduced their costs in bankruptcy to below Americans and thus we are once again behind the eight ball to these folks.
Bankruptcy is not about how all of the stakeholders, creditors and employees join hands, sing Kum-Ba-Ya and create a lean mean competitor. Bankruptcy is about everyone forced to the table and trying their hardest to do the least that they can do.
That seems to have proven itself out again when you look at the United data from the PLI study of last fall. They have no domestic work rules and yet they are not very productive. You can force W2 cuts and work rule changes on a work force but they are still running a crappy airline.
Don’t look for any stunning turnarounds in that bunch for a long time, if ever.
PUP and Management Compensation
You read from yesterday’s blast as to how management is richly compensating itself here at American to the tune of roughly $100 million this year alone for bonuses. While they have changed the payout to include both cash and stock the bottom line transfer of wealth to these folks for doing a job they should have been doing all along is very disheartening. Remember, this is not a one time event. Next year if unchanged, the payout will be even more. Clearly to me this management is interested in the short term and not what American Airlines will look like 10 years from now.
Final Thoughts
I am repeatedly asked out on the line what I think the future here at AA will hold and when we will start recalling those who are furloughed. Until American gains its competitiveness standing back I don’t think any significant thing will happen on the upside. Last September I wrote an article I called Why Great Companies Fail . It probably generated more responses to any other thing I have written both complementary and critical.
If you recall the main premise was that when faced with market disruptors either technical or low priced in nature a very common response is for the once great company to cede the low margin product and try to move up market to where their margins are better. In the meantime the financials of the company ceding the low margin business actually improve for a short time until the tough competitor decides to come after the margins in the next market level. We have watched how low cost carriers moved into the domestic market and once the margins there were lowered acquired the aircraft to go after the trans-con market. Today, the trans-con market is no longer the provider of rich profits to American it once was but rather another low margin or losing proposition.
It is common knowledge that Southwest’s new aircraft are coming delivered with over water equipment. They are also telling their employees that they will continue to expand over the next 5 years at least. Anyone want to bet me that they are not looking at Mexico, Latin America, Canada or the Caribbean? After all it is the next market level attainable after the US Trans-Con market.
I think our management has figured this all out and now that they have a way to take hundreds of millions out of the coffers over the next few years they are focused on the short term outlook rather than on what American Airlines will look like in 10 years and certainly where your future is.
Doug
frog_flyer
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AA717driver (TC),
That last post should have been prefaced with a disclaimer. Your post wasn't written by you but rather written by Doug Gabel, the STL APA rep.
You had me confused for a while. It took me a few paragraphs to figure it out. TC attending recurrent with Capt Hetterman???? How could that be?
I agree with Gabel. Sometimes his crystal ball can see things clearly. AA has no plan.
That last post should have been prefaced with a disclaimer. Your post wasn't written by you but rather written by Doug Gabel, the STL APA rep.
You had me confused for a while. It took me a few paragraphs to figure it out. TC attending recurrent with Capt Hetterman???? How could that be?
I agree with Gabel. Sometimes his crystal ball can see things clearly. AA has no plan.
AA717driver
A simpler time...
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Sorry. I posted that in a hurry (no, there was no alcohol involved...) so I didn't give it proper credit.
Clambake--I'm pretty long-winded but that's a lot even by my standards!
XTW--As usual, I vote for Skooner's! There are a few barstools there that still have imprints of my butt-cheeks...
TC
Clambake--I'm pretty long-winded but that's a lot even by my standards!
XTW--As usual, I vote for Skooner's! There are a few barstools there that still have imprints of my butt-cheeks...
TC
frog_flyer
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Jeff Helgeson
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AA717driver
A simpler time...
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