AA scope / sale of Executive Airlines

[monkeyboy]

You ever wonder why regional pilots get paid less? It's not because we are any less witty than the major airline pilots. It's because we all want to be major airline pilots and are just at the regionals to build time. It's very hard to get a strong Union leadership when the turnover rates are high. A large percentage of regional pilots don't stay around long enough to care about the contract.

However, times are changing and more and more flying is being done by "regional jets". It's time to realize that the only way to stop cheap labor is to raise pay for RJ's. The only way to do that is pilot unity across the board.

There is no use blaming anybody for the poor pay rates, we need to focus on the future.

I applaud APA for taking the first step. I hope APA does not back down on "resolving the outsourcing issue once and for all". I'm sure if one major does it, the others will follow shortly.

 

[Draginass]

As an APA member, I've got ZERO say about what kind of contract that AE ALPA members sign. That's up to them. The buck stops with AE ALPA members. I hear regional pilots on this forum carp about how they're just as worthy as mainline pilots, yet they keep selling themselves into cheap contracts. It's not up to majors pilots to make themselves cheaper in order to make an integration more attractive to management, it's up to regional pilots to make themselves expensive enough that it's more costly to run separate operations. It's not about how "good" or "worthy" you are, to management, it's all about MONEY.

 

[~~~^~~~]

I hear regional pilots on this forum carp about how they're just as worthy as mainline pilots, yet they keep selling themselves into cheap contracts.

So are you saying the Comair pilots sold themselves? A 100 day strike folded only after they saw their aircraft and routes going to other airlines. They did everything they could!

It's not up to majors pilots to make themselves cheaper in order to make an integration more attractive to management

The mainline pilot groups negotiated away domestic codeshare as a way to preserve mainline pay structures during concessionary bargaining. The mainline guys let domestic codeshare out of the bag to begin with and now want no part of the responsibility to help fix the mess.

It's not about how "good" or "worthy" you are, to management, it's all about MONEY

And the only way to fight this is UNITY. As a union members, unity is what we should be about.

Now why don't you answer the questions posted to you?
(1) Wouldn't all American brand flying performed by American pilots be effective scope?
(2) If scope works so well at forcing the Company to operate larger equipment at mainline pay rates, why not force American to operate 777's in all markets? After all, compared to a 777, the Folker 100 is a low compensation airplane that "steals" flying from better paying MD80's, right?
(3) How will you benefit by forcing the sale of American Eagle's assets in Puerto Rico? How will you benefit from their pulling seats out of ATR's and Saabs?

 

[seagle]

Draginass,
AMR will never integrate both pilot lists because they don't have to. Whether AE had the ability to strike or not would not change AMR's position on integration. It is not in AMR's benefit to integrate so they will try any and all means to circumnavigate Scope, even if this means selling parts of Eagle as evidenced by Peter Bowler's announcement. It is not in Eagles benefit to integrate because labor costs will rise and those high paying Eagle management positions would disappear, from president to chief pilots. Eagle knows they can always find cheap labor to fill their cockpits so they don't have a pilot shortage. What the 16 (now 12) year contract really affords AMR/Eagle is subpar wages for the next 12 years without the pilots ability to do a thing about it.
The real question that needs to be addressed by AMR/APA is how can AA compete against the SWA's, Jet Blue's, and Air Tran's today? Remember that these airlines were in the black last year, AA wasn't. SWA is planning on doubling their fleet size in the next 10 years. Can any of the big three say that? If you look at labor costs I'm sure you will see AMR's reason for wanting to expand AMR/Eagle. It is simply a matter of economics and survival of AMR. Look at the mess United is in and the rumors abouding of bankruptcy! Draginass, can you tell us how AA is going to compete against SWA, Jet Blue, Air Tran and for that matter all the regionals out there? I know it is a very complex issue, however one that must be addressed by the APA.

 

[80drvr]

Now why don't you answer the questions posted to you?
(1) Wouldn't all American brand flying performed by American pilots be effective scope?
(2) If scope works so well at forcing the Company to operate larger equipment at mainline pay rates, why not force American to operate 777's in all markets? After all, compared to a 777, the Folker 100 is a low compensation airplane that "steals" flying from better paying MD80's, right?
(3) How will you benefit by forcing the sale of American Eagle's assets in Puerto Rico? How will you benefit from their pulling seats out of ATR's and Saabs? [/B][/QUOTE]

First, good job to the Comair pilots! They may not have gotten everything they wanted, but they did move the bar incrementally higher for regional airline labor. Now if all the other regional pilot groups had the same cajones, this thread would probably not exist.

Now, I'll try and answer your questions....

1. Yes, AA pilots owning all flying on the AA code is effective scope. Prior to 1987 this was the case. In 1987 an exception to scope was made that concieved Eagle to feed mainline hubs with turboprops. In 1997, another exception was made allowing Eagle to obtain RJ's within certain specific airframe and ASM limits. These exceptions have resulted in double digit growth at Eagle and more importantly, the transfer of mainline narrowbody flying to the regionals. Now that certain contractal limits in those agreements have been reached, that double digit growth must stop. The inception of scope exceptions in the industry was a huge strategic error on the part of all mainline labor groups. The RJ issue has just compounded that. There are a number of ways they could have tackled the turbo prop feed issue in the 80's, but the result of those decisions or indecisions is definately a mess.

2. It's not the equipment APA cares about, it's the flying. When mainline flying is outsourced regardless of the airframe, it's a problem that APA has to deal with. If the company wants to put 80 RJ's a day on ORD-DFW, that's fines as long as the jobs aren't outsourced. And, smaller capacity generates smaller revenue and consequently pays less. And you'd probably be surpised that an RJ capt is being paid approximately the same percentage of capacity as a mainline capt. Applying mainline pay scales to the RJ's won't significantly affect the pay rates, but the work rules and benefits will certainly improve as would career expectations.

3. APA won't benefit from the sale of Executive airlines. If management chooses to pursue a path of mutually assured destruction in an effort to circumvent the intent of their agreement with APA while complying with the ASM cap, then I guess that flying isn't all that important to the bottom line. But don't expect APA to budge on this one. They've offered mgmt an a la carte menu of solutions in there latest proposal that would preserve mainline jobs and retain all feed flying.

 

[jetexas]

I flew with a guy not too long ago that told me a story about when he was in college. He was able, through his college aviation program, to visit SWA HQ. As he was led down a hall they passed Herb Kelleher's office. Herb invited the small group to come in and talk. Herb, with feet on the desk and a cigar in his mouth said "Go ahead, ask me anything". This guy says "Could you tell me what specific ways you treat the passengers to keep your business going strongly?" Herb looked him right in the eye, took his feet off the desk and said "____ the passengers. I take care of my employees and they take care of the passengers".
I think AMR is entirely focused on $ mode right now for obvious reasons. What the bean counters don't realize is that now is the time to give a little. They would likely receive a lot in return. They trashed the APA proposal and are violating Eagle's Scope instead.

 

[Tim47SIP]

Could someone from the APA side of the house please explain to me how capping Eagles growth right now makes sence. Other airlines are using the RJ to their advantage to gain market dominance and APA says, whoa! Ya, I understand the the reasoning of APA not wanting Eagle to dominate AA with cheap labor, but someone has to think about the state of the economy and how to regain market shares. That aint going to happen by stiffeling growth. Now AMR wants to possibly sell its Miami asstes to compete? Fine, Delta has been waiting to move more DCI down there anyway.
Look at the other extreem with US Airways scope. They said NO jets at the WO's and look where it got them. Their scope was so damaging that US Air cant even try to regain footing in the industry withought resourcing to contract carriers. Matter of fact, they finally have figured out that in order to survive, the company needs RJ's. The mainline ALPA has authorized additional RJ's but they will only go to the contract carriers because US Air cant finance the equipement itself. Their scope has damaged the company to the extent that mainline furloughies are negotiating to fly those additional jets at the contract carriers and not their WO's. What a mess that is.

 

[Tim47SIP]

Just thought that I would give his thread a little boost and i am still waiting for an answer. What do you think.

 

[DougCorp-9]

Hey Draginass

Since when can Eagle not strike for 12 years?

 

[English]

Since four years ago when they signed a 16 year contract...

 

[DougCorp-9]

OUCH!!!

 

[Airline Pilot27]

16 yr tradgedy

I wasn't at AE when that contract was signed. I do not blame the guys that were on the property back then because they were betrayed by ALPA and ofcourse management. Although I have no doubt that it will go down in history as the worst ever signed by any pilot group, it was certainly not presented in that way. Eagle pilots were promised among other things that:
The pay formula would keep AE above all others
In 5 years all eagle pilots would be at AA
Eagle will be the sole feed for AA
None of these were realized because of poor contract language
The contract was also initially turned down but some of our ALPA reps namely a person by the name of Homer Puke(spelling) convinced the pilots to sign and sold us down the river. Incidently He now recieves a line guarantee of 92 hours while the rest of us get 72. Sound a little fishy..I think so. At the same time AMR ruthlessly intimidated the pilots and this 16 year disgrace came to be. That is the way that I see it at least.