80drvr said:
AA has lost many routes to AE and consequently jobs. Eagle has replaced AA on numerous flights out of PHX, LAX, SJC, DCA and RDU to many former narrowbody destinations.
Are you trying to tell me that every time the Company changes equipment on a route it sends the airplane that used to fly that route to be parked in the desert? Have those equipment substitutions resulted in a reduction in your block hours? If not, you haven't lost any jobs. Your airplane is just flying to a different place.
The recent reduction in your ASMs is caused by the downturn in the economy and the 9-11 attacks on our country. Neither of those events have anything to do with Eagle. They are also losing business for the same reasons. If Eagle wasn't there to keep some passengers coming, your ASM would have been reduced even further. The exact opposite of what you claim.
When you look at growth over the last decade, Eagles seat mile growth is somewhere around 20% while AA's is around 2%. These are approximate numbers, so anyone who has the latest actual numbers please join the fray.
So there has been a different growth rate at AE than at AA. How does that equate to your losing jobs? Do you actually believe that if AE did not exist it's 20% ASM growth would suddenly appear on the bottom of the AA ledger and make your growth 22%? I hope that's not what you think, 'cause that's not how it works.
AE is a much smaller company and it is much easier to show a higher percentage growth rate in a small company than it is in a large one. You are looking at apples and comparing them to oranges. I don't have the numbers to do the math, but if you didn't have AE it is just as propable as not that your 2% positive could have been 2% negative, without the feed generated by AE.
There are markets in which large aircraft (which includes your AA narrow body equipment) are simply unprofitable and smaller aircraft make money on the same route. If I followed your hypothesis, all the airplanes would be triple sevens. How many jobs would you lose then?
The CASM of the small aircraft is much higher than the CASM of your larger equipment. You can bet your bottom dollar that the second your management knows that it can show a higher yield by using bigger airframes, it will take AE off the route in a heart beat and give it to AA. That's what it should do and that would NOT mean you were taking anything from AE.
AE does not reduce your growth rate, it actually maintains or improves it. That is why management operates AE. They aren't busy trying to figure out how to replace you, they're busy trying to make a buck.
I think we pilots too often forget that the purpose of the operation is to make profit for the shareholders, not provide jobs for us. I'm about as far from being a management puke as you can get, but I'm not without common sense either.
Your airline just grew by a big margin due to the acquisition of TWA. Not too much before that it grew due to the purchase of Reno. How many of you do you think might be furloughed today if those things had not happened?
I don't think you should outsource your flying, but the fact that your contract allows some of the flying to be done by a subsidiary is not the company's fault and it is not Eagle's fault. It is your fault (along with that of every other major airline except SWA).
All those little airplanes that you're complaining about (Eagle) should have been flown by AA pilots from day one. You didn't want that (for whatever reason) and so you got what you wanted (the creation of a subsidiary). Now you're complaining about it. Too late, the horse is already out of the barn.
I agree there's a need to fix it and get all the airplanes in one stable, but that means the Eagle pilots should come with their airplanes. ALL of them! It does not mean that you should transfer their airplanes to you and put them on the street.
Sorry for the rant. Sometimes it is just necessary to tell it like it is and fortunately I don't have to be "politically correct". I am not an AE pilot or an AA pilot.
This whole thing is a big problem and it needs to be fixed. It can't be fixed by one group of pilots shafting another group of pilots just because they can.
I think your group is on the right track, i.e., all the flying done by one pilot group. However, the methodology summarized sounds veryssuspect to me, not like a workable deal. That's why I asked for the "full proposal." I can't form a legitimate opinon based on a press release. The AE pilots on this board seem to think they can. God help them.
Best regards.
