US Airways keeping it classy this week

[General Lee]

Does it have to be either or? Are the only choices the disgrace that we have here and what you describe at QR? Is there truly no better way?

I don't think every FA is a disgrace here. I think many consider it a career, and in other countries it's a "contract." Do you want to be the one to tell those FA's that their career is over? What if they are single parents? That would be tough. I think the FAA would have to get involved with new rules and maybe requirements (like being able to pick up the over wing exit door (40 lbs) by themselves and place it on the seat) to create more change.

As far as the ME airlines go, they may not be able to find enough pilots eventually with all of their orders, but they probably will find good looking FAs. They may not stay long though if they continue to be treated poorly, kinda like the EK pilots with their poor rosters as of late. No protections for any job in the ME, with plenty here in the US.



Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[Dumb Pilot]

Pave,

It's called living in a litigious society

You keep making that argument but it is invalid..., you forget that on the list of the top 20 airlines in the world, most of them are from advanced countries that have as restrictive (if not more) labor laws as in the US..., Lufthansa, ANA, JAL, British Airways, Korean.., all these airlines fare very well year after year on that list and their labor laws are almost too much in favor of the employee.

 

[General Lee]

You keep making that argument but it is invalid..., you forget that on the list of the top 20 airlines in the world, most of them are from advanced countries that have as restrictive (if not more) labor laws as in the US..., Lufthansa, ANA, JAL, British Airways, Korean.., all these airlines fare very well year after year on that list and their labor laws are almost too much in favor of the employee.

Riiiiight, except in Asia where you are. All of the FAs at Korean, Asiana, and others that I've seen lately in SEA or SFO seemed to be about mid 20s, almost 6 feet tall, and gorgeous. That's great and all, but not exactly fair for "anyone" who wants to apply. You just can't do that here or you'd get sued. If they don't pass the training though, then they get terminated.

You yourself are enjoying a policy (allowing expats) that thank Gawd doesn't exist here in the States. You must get mean looks from ANA pilots. What happens if ANA wants it's flying back? JAL just absorbed JAL Express, and if the economy gets worse, you never know what might happen. Good luck.



Bye Bye---General Lee

 

[Dumb Pilot]

Riiiiight, except in Asia where you are. All of the FAs at Korean, Asiana, and others that I've seen lately in SEA or SFO seemed to be about mid 20s, almost 6 feet tall, and gorgeous. That's great and all, but not exactly fair for "anyone" who wants to apply. You just can't do that here or you'd get sued. If they don't pass the training though, then they get terminated.

Wrong....! Completely wrong! Both ANA and JAL have a very senior group of F/A's and the discrimination laws in Japan and Korea are very strict..., now, that because of their eating habits and typical body types most people in Asia are thin so guess what the majority of F/A's will look like, but you do find many that are on the heavy side, I just turned 50 and recently only the F/O was younger than me..., but it is true that all of them look 20 years younger..., those dammed genes...LOL! Tall CA's????? That's one thing that I wouldn't call my CA's LOL



You yourself are enjoying a policy (allowing expats) that thank Gawd doesn't exist here in the States. You must get mean looks from ANA pilots. What happens if ANA wants it's flying back? JAL just absorbed JAL Express, and if the economy gets worse, you never know what might happen. Good luck.


One of the problems of posting so much none sense year after year is that you don't remember previous topics, you and I have had this discussion three times already...., the funny thing is you have such a simple mind that the three other post related to this have been virtually identical....LOL!

So I'll give you the same answer since it will be new to you...! First of all, there are more foreigners working for any of the US airlines than in all of the Japanese companies combined..., all they need is legal residence, so! Isn't that allowing expats to work in the US?

The working environment here is excellent actually, everybody from the mainline pilots to the CSA's, the training department, dispatch and maintenance are very professional and polite. About them terminating the expat contracts, we are all aware that this is a possibility, if the need is there at some point, I would say thanks for the amazing oportunity and wish them the best of luck. ANA has been great to me and my colleagues and none of us has a problem with that.

But the need in Japan is not subsiding, to the contrary, once ANA starts getting the brunt of that massive A/C orders, they better start increasing their hiring of pilots wherever they can find them, if not they will be facing a serious shortage, so I don't foresee the cancelation of the expat contracts any time soon.
JAL is in the same boat, they are canceling flights and offering $60,000 sign in bonus to the pilots that they let go in 08...., they also received relaxation from the union and brought back all the over 60 pilots they could..., lots of rumors about a DEC 787/777 contract at JAL on the works, that is the situation in Japan right now.

Back to the topic at hand....., the top 20 airlines in the world...., year after year, with as restrictive labor laws, if not more than the US. Lufthansa, KLM, BA, JAL, ANA...., all these airlines do very well on the SKYTRAX list year after year, all of them with very restrictive labor laws and highly unionized..., you are simply wrong, there is no excuse as to why the airlines in the US rank so poorly on regards to service, no excuse!

 

[flyboyike]

I don't think every FA is a disgrace here. I think many consider it a career, and in other countries it's a "contract." Do you want to be the one to tell those FA's that their career is over? What if they are single parents? That would be tough. I think the FAA would have to get involved with new rules and maybe requirements (like being able to pick up the over wing exit door (40 lbs) by themselves and place it on the seat) to create more change.

I suppose there are always plenty of reasons to tolerate mediocrity (their dog died, they're a single parent, their third cousin four times removed is suspected of having Ebola, etc). My point was there are (or should be) more reasons NOT to tolerate mediocrity, and expect excellence. I mean, we're supposed to be the greatest ever, right?

On a side note, until September 2013, I, too, would qualify as an expat working in the US. Any questions on why it took a white, English-fluent, legal immigrant 22 years to get naturalized should be addressed to www.uscis.gov

 

[Groucho]

Could it be the Allegheny gene.......

Ted Reed Contributor I've been covering the airline industry since 1989.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
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Logistics & Transportation 10/25/2014 @ 12:08PM 9,124 views

American Airlines Honors Allegheny, the Number One Merger Airline

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In a consolidation-obsessed business, Allegheny Airlines may have been the biggest consolidator of them all.
It merged with Lake Central. It merged with Mohawk. It changed its named to the more universal ?US Air.? It merged with Piedmont. It merged with PSA. It changed its named to the more distinctive ?US Airways.? It merged with America West. And finally, it merged with American.
Now, as part of American CEO Doug Parker?s longtime effort to honor airline lineage, Allegheny is being recognized with an American heritage aircraft. The A319 was painted in Roswell, N.M. It had been flying as an Allegheny heritage aircraft in the US Airways fleet, but the paint job means it shows the American logo instead of the US Airways log.
The Allegheny aircraft joins heritage PSA and America West aircraft in the American fleet. Aircraft that honor Piedmont, as well as Air Cal, Reno Air and TWA, are coming.
Allegheny was known for being generous with its employees. ?The principle culture in this company is the Allegheny culture,? US Airways CEO Stephen Wolf told employees in Charlotte in 1997, according to my new book, ?American Airlines, US Airways and the Creation of the World?s Largest Airline.?
?Allegheny flew monopoly routes in the East for 2,000 years at monopoly price,? Wolf said then. ?It was wonderful and profitable every day of its life and as a result of that, we are very generous with our employees.?
At the time, Wolf was addressing the issue of ?swaps,? raised by a customer service agent during a question and answer period. Swaps enabled trades of shifts with other workers.
At one time, the swaps policy allowed the airline?s 4,000 reservations agents to trade up to 50% of their shifts, but the number had been cut back to 20 swaps per quarter, irritating the agents. Many of them had drawn night shifts for years.
Wolf called the policy ?goofy.? In 1996, US Airways was still a high-cost airline, largely because every time the airline had completed a merger, the most generous components of the two previous contracts were retained.
It was a strategy that worked well when airlines were regulated, but after deregulation, it began to fray, as Southwest and other low cost airlines invaded the East Coast. A turning point came when Southwest began to serve Baltimore, then a USAir hub, in 1993.

As Frank Lorenzo, probably the most important figure in shaping the post-deregulation U.S. airline industry, has said: ?They deregulated revenues, but they didn?t deregulate costs.?
Ed Colodny was the executive who presided over four mergers at Allegheny/US Air between 1975 and 1991.
When Colodny started at Allegheny in 1957, the headquarters were in Hangar 12 at Washington?s National Airport. ?The corporate officers were on the second floor of what was the maintenance facility of the airline,? Colodny said, in an interview for the book.
?To describe my office as modest would be an overstatement,? he said.
At the time, Allegheny served 8 states and about 50 communities, including small Pennsylvania cities such as Altoona, Erie, Harrisburg, Lancaster and Redding. It wanted to grow, and Colodny led various efforts to convince the Civil Aviation Board to relax restrictions on local service airlines
Colodny changed the name to USAir in 1979, and he built the airline through mergers. As a result, Allegheny became the only local service airline from the 1950s to remain viable into the 21st century.
Now it is largely just a memory, recalled by a heritage airplane.


This is my 5th merger and it is safe to say that there will be very little of the "other" cultures of the former Airlines left. It take time but it happens.
As to the "American Culture", I can only say that Doug Parker and Scott Kirby think that sacred cows make the best burgers.

 

[Turtle21]

"As to the "American Culture", I can only say that Doug Parker and Scott Kirby think that sacred cows make the best burgers."

I suspect Parker/Kirby have no clue what they are bitting off if they think they will easily foist their Walmart culture on APA.

 

[JD2003]

Parker is a Liar and a money grubbing cock sucker.

 

[Data]

I suspect Parker/Kirby have no clue what they are bitting off if they think they will easily foist their Walmart culture on APA.

Bwaahaaa, that's hilarious. The home of the $15 side of bluecheese is not as cherished or special as some might believe. APA is as big a joke as the rest of 'em.

 

[get2flyin]

Parker is a Liar and a money grubbing cock sucker.

Why would you resurrect a 5 month old thread?