American and Eagle (AMR)

[rican]

majors

UPS, FDX, & ABX are majors too.

 

[ALCOHOLIC]

I'm a furloughed June '01 AA DOH. It wasn't much fun losing 2300 numbers in a day. I know how you guys feel.

I know it hurts, but think of this. You did loose 2300 spots. That is almost down to 2100. See you just gained 200. TWA brought somewhere around about 140 planes afrer AA gotr rid of the 9's,717(stupid) and the 767 200's. That is barely enough pilots to do the flying with AA's work rules. Remember instructors and management are in the 2100 left. Next year over a hundered more will be gone. If AA does not shrink anymore, you are in a better position than you would be if AA did not buy TWA. Remember you were hired because of expected growth. I do not think there will be much growth for awhile. I am furloughed also so I know how you feel, but look at the big picture. The big picture being furloughed blows.

 

[pilot141]

ALCOHOLIC,

I don't mean to be a jerk, but shouldn't BAYOUBANDIT expect to benefit from AA buying TWA? I mean, if I'm hired by a company that buys another company, shouldn't that benefit me as an employee?

Did BAYOUBANDIT have an application on file with TWA? Did he want to work there?

Being furloughed sucks, but telling BAYOUBANDIT that he should be glad that almost 2,300 TWA guys took up spots in front of him on the AA list without his consent is just rude.

The problem AA had after 9/11 was excess capacity, as did every other major. Unfortunately, AA now had to deal with both AA and TWA capacity. Using two seniority lists, AA furloughed what they could.

Now that the seniority lists are combined, every TWA pilot must be recalled before someone in BAYOUBANDIT's class is recalled. I think that the seniority integration was very favorable to TWA guys, in that every one of them is senior to an AA guy hired in April 2001.

As for airplanes and routes, welcome to AMR. We bought two west-coast airlines (Air Cal and Reno Air) and still do not fly any SEA-LAX routes. Expect to see STL dwindle down and in five years disappear as a pilot base.

Expect to see numerous fights with the "new" feeders in STL, as AMR tries to use them to avoid scope and ASM clauses.

Bottom line: in 2007, expect STL as an Eagle RJ hub, and nothing else. The TWA and AA pilots will be fighting over the same amount of mainline jobs that we have now.

 

[ALCOHOLIC]

EXCUSE ME

Pilot 141,

Do you not think out friend and many other Reall AA pilots would be fourlouged if not for the former TWA. I think I can find 209 pilots glad that single carrier was announced. They would still be on the street if it were not for TWA. They were not needed but after single carrier was ruled they had to come back because they were senior to the twa pilots and it was cheaper to bring them back to the AA side rather than furlough more TWA guys and have the 209 go through a full TWA school. By the way, TWA has left 103 MD80's many of them new. The 757's will be here until at least 2005. The 767's are being replaced next year with new ones. I am sorry our friend is furloughed. I did not have an app in with AA.

 

[Flying Jade]

I think that the seniority integration was very favorable to TWA guys, in that every one of them is senior to an AA guy hired in April 2001.

Now, come on....considering that every TW guy senior to that April 2001 AA guy WAS INDEED hired PRIOR to April 2001 (some as early as 1986 who lost 15 years)...that's not called Favorable, that's called FAIR (and those guys who lost the 15 years would call it something else, I'm sure)!!


FJ

 

[BacktoAA]

Unfortunately, those of us hired after April 2001 have no room to bitch. It was a widely known and advertised situation that we would in most likelyhood be below ALL of the TWA folks. We knew that before playing the game - we could have gone somewhere (NWA, FedEx) else but believed that AA is the winning team. Time will tell.

 

[bayoubandit]

Wow,

To start, I did not have an application in with TWA. I didn't have much desire to go there since their future looked bleak. I was aware that when I hired on that the TWA guys would go ahead of me. I still chose AA, yes, the aquisition seemed to have benfits, remember this was all long before 9/11. But then I remembered how AMR does business when it comes to mergers/aquisitions. I still think I made the right decision (most of my friends at the commuters agree). The frustration lies in that the timing was off.

Losing those numbers when your active is one thing, but the frustration arose when being furloughed and losing those numbers. Some gained, others lost. But I still have one of the best jobs around to go back to. (lets hope)

I, as well as many of my classmates did expect to benefit from the aquisition of TWA. As of now, we have not. Will we in the future, I doubt it seeing as AMR has and may continue to decrease the fleet size. This just prolongs the furlough. No need to explain how this works.

I am not glad by anymeans that AMR bought TWA. I do not think that my class is in a better position with TWA. I think we would have been far better off without TWA. I only can say that with the events that have happened and the industry hurting. But I still have a hunch that AA wouldn't have benefited that much ommiting 9/11. With AMR's track record of mergers, the same results may have happened anyways. But now is reality, and that's what we have to deal with. There are too many questions and not enough answers, maybe the aquisition will benefit us down the road, maybe it won't.

After all my rambling, BacktoAA said it best. Those of us hired after April '01 have no room to bitch. We were fully aware of what was to come with regard to the TWA folks. Despite being furloughed, I still glad and lucky to have been hired at AA when I was. We have a long road ahead of us, and to me being furloughed is one of the lesser important of whats to come. With the cabotage, baseball arbitration, and scope lobbying, the furlough might be like a walk in Central Park. You know, you might get mugged or beat up a little bit, but you still walk away from it without having lost much in the grand scheme of things. How's that for a bad anology??

 

[HA25]

Anyone know what the pilot retirement picture looks like at both AA and TWA?

Afterall with 13000+ pilots, there has to be room for 700 to come back over the next two years based on that alone, let alone any economic recovery etc..


BTW, what are you considered if you were hired after 4/01 by AA, but never were assigned a seniority number? AA, TWA, or AA/TWA new bread?

 

[ALCOHOLIC]

I just counted on the AA pilots site and there is 266 retiring between now and July 2003. It looks like alot of them are former TWA pilots. This does not account for early retirements and medicals..



hope this helps,

burrrp!!

 

[HA25]

Well guys, I just talked with a good friend who is very senior (767 check airman) and well informed at American and he seems to think that there may be another 100 furloughs at American. He didn't seem to think that it was to do with anything other than slow recovery. I hope this is just rumor and totally wrong, but this guys is "in the know".

I still think that if APA starts to talk about a contract extention rather than keep drumming the section 6 stuff (its a timing thing), they would do themselves a big favor as the section 6 is better done under good economic times, for now do like NWA, and CAL and extend what you've got with an indexed payraise. And tie it all to a recall of pilots.

IMHO

 

[bayoubandit]

A contract extension may be an idea to juggle around with, but I doubt it would fly with some of those hard core union types around there. Another thing is that right now is a perfect time for negotiations for Carty. With all the "doom and gloom" it helps make Carty's case for government intervention with regard to scope, baseball arbitration and cabotage (foreign investment). AMR also needs relief on the RJ, so I think they are willing to negotiate regardless of the economic state of the country. JMO.

Another 100 furloughs would not surprise me at all. I was reading C&R and I guess the latest schoolhouse rumor is that the F100 & A300 fleet will be going soon. Results would be furloughs of 1500 pilots, 4000 F/A's and 500 mgmt type. Another rumor was to recall about 100 guys to fill somewhere. Who knows! I think the fleet retirements is nothing more than a fear grenade, but god forbid if it did happen, I think we could pretty much forget about going back to AA in the next 7-8 years. Lets hope it is just a rumor.

V70T5, for those guys who never got a seniority number, they were terminated with recall rights. Initially they were to be fired with no recall rights. The union struck an agreement with AMR to recall those guys. They are original AA, regardless, we are all AA now.

 

[AAflyer]

We are the union!!! Get out a sound-off and let them know that many are intrested in doing what NWA did. I sent one a few days ago. Living near headquarters I think the consensus in the union is more in resloving scope with Eagle and Oneworld than a pay raise at this point.

As for both fleets being eliminated it is a fear grenade. The cargo capacity and mission of the A300 in the carribean can not be replaced by anything else. The amount of capacity that would be eliminated is more market share than AMR is willing to give up. I too have a few sources in the palace. Before anymore furloughs expect to maybe see offers of early outs this fall. They are looking at a few things, some announcements will be made soon.

AAflyer

 

[HA25]

This is a fact:

Mo Company, Airline or otherwise, can grow by shrinking....and growth is the goal of every business along with profits. So AMR will not turn into a Southwest, and that is simply a management scare tactic.

I do hope that APA does play a little bit of ball on the scope issue, just because I really believe that it does feed to mainline. There are some cases where it is a blatent replacement of mainline, but this should be written into the scope clause and arbitrated.

 

[walmartwannabe]

Question to Bayoubandit

Hey Bayou Bandit,

Did you say you were hired at AA or did you flow through from Eagle ?

 

[seagle]

Just wondering how AA plans to compete against SWA, Jetblue, Airtran, ATA, Air Alaska, Spirit, AWA and the other regionals? How long will AMR's 2.5 billion last at a loss rate of 2 billion per year? If AMR doesn't change they won't be another "Walmart" of the airline industry (Mr. Carty should be so lucky), but rather the next "Kmart."