2009 Flight Attendant Attrition

[jimntx]

No problemo, Art. Remember, as one of the 1200 subject to furlough I have a particularly vested interest in the attrition rate. In looking at the years of service of some of the retirees, I'm thinking that maybe some of them have decided that waiting for a new contract or a better retirement package is a fool's mission.

The company has no incentive whatsoever to reach a new contract with any of the unions since the RLA stipulates that the previous contract remains in force until a new one is ratified. Why should the company rush toward paying higher wages? And, they know as well as we do, that no contract without pay raises is going to get ratified--particularly with the bad blood caused by the executive bonusses over the past couple of years.

Also, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to take away retirement benefits from people already collecting those benefits. Shedding pension plans in a pre-packaged bankruptcy has been proven to be not so hard.
Maybe some of them are thinking that they had better get on the retirement rolls while the getting is good.

 

[jimntx]

June, 2009 Year-to-date:
Dom----------17------667
Intl------------28------118
Total----------45------785
Retirees -----24--------96

Avg. monthly attrition is 131/mo, but don't forget that Flight Service is including the 323 furloughed in April in the attrition numbers. If you remove them from the total, the avg attrition is 77/mo.

There were new numbers on the website today. I have not idea whether these are final numbers for June or first numbers for July. The change is so minimal, I'm assuming final June numbers. Total increase of only 8 in attrition. Of the 8, 6 appear to be retirements.
June, 2009 Year-to-Date
Dom----------18------668
Intl------------35------125
Total----------53------793
Retirees -----30------102

 

[jimntx]

The previous post turns out to be an adjustment to June numbers AND a total for July. The attrition for July was a grand total of 5 f/as!

 

[jimntx]

June, 2009 Year-to-date:
Dom----------17------667
Intl------------28------118
Total----------45------785
Retirees -----24--------96

Avg. monthly attrition is 131/mo, but don't forget that Flight Service is including the 323 furloughed in April in the attrition numbers. If you remove them from the total, the avg attrition is 77/mo.

Well, never say never. New numbers were posted to the website last night for July.

July, 2009 Year-to-date:
Dom------24------691
Intl--------19-----137
Total------43-----828
Retirees -24------120

Avg. attrition is down to 118/mo.

 

[jimntx]

Well, never say never. New numbers were posted to the website last night for July.

July, 2009 Year-to-date:
Dom------24------691
Intl--------19-----137
Total------43-----828
Retirees -24------120
Avg. attrition is down to 118/mo.

July/Aug 2009 Year-to-date:
Dom------27------694
Intl--------20-----138
Total------47-----832
Retirees -27------123

Slight adjustment of 4 to July numbers. Two of those--1 International retiree, 1 domestic quit/fired/died--are shown as August numbers.

 

[jimntx]

July/Aug 2009 Year-to-date:
Dom------29------696
Intl--------22-----140
Total------47-----836
Retirees -27------125

Another slight adjustment of 4 total. Have no idea if these are ending August numbers or early September numbers. Only sure thing, 2 of the 4 are retirees--neither of which gave permission for their names to be posted on the Flight Service retirement roster. It still shows only the one name for August.

 

[MCI transplant]

AA is strange in more ways than one!!!!!!!!!!

<_< ----- AMEN!!!

 

[jimntx]

People, it's like the Chinese water torture trying to figure out the attrition from this drip, drip, drip of information. As you know I was taking the annual total from the previous month and subtracting it from the current month annual total to derive the monthly attrition.

Now, the total numbers have not changed. However, I checked my monthly calculations this morning against theirs. All of a sudden there are minor adjustments throughout the year. For instance, when they posted the first annual total for 2009 in early February (i.e., January attrition), they reported 18 domestic attrition. If you look at their monthly numbers now (I discovered a couple of months ago that if you click on the year, it will show you the monthly numbers), January domestic attrition now shows 19. ?????

I think they are doing this just to make me crazy. (What??? How dare you? Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that there aren't some people out to get me. )

 

[Bob Owens]

People, it's like the Chinese water torture trying to figure out the attrition from this drip, drip, drip of information. As you know I was taking the annual total from the previous month and subtracting it from the current month annual total to derive the monthly attrition.

Now, the total numbers have not changed. However, I checked my monthly calculations this morning against theirs. All of a sudden there are minor adjustments throughout the year. For instance, when they posted the first annual total for 2009 in early February (i.e., January attrition), they reported 18 domestic attrition. If you look at their monthly numbers now (I discovered a couple of months ago that if you click on the year, it will show you the monthly numbers), January domestic attrition now shows 19. ?????

I think they are doing this just to make me crazy. (What??? How dare you? Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that there aren't some people out to get me. )

I'm not an FA but back in June when the company was trying to make us think that we had to further discount our labor I was told that the attrition rate was projected at around 8 mechanics per month (96/yr) but by August, when they were telling us they werent going to offer the VBRs because they couldnt afford to lose any mechanics they said the attrition rate was projected at 300 to 400 a year.

 

[jimntx]

Aug/Sep 2009 Year-to-date:
Dom------77------773
Intl---------5------145
Total------82------918
Retirees -15------140

Ok. I know that these are ending August numbers, but they include 2 for September. Quite a jump from last month.

 

[jimntx]

New numbers posted today--assume final September. As usual the 2009 monthly totals do not match the last posting in 25SEP. Notice on the previous post, I said that the domestic numbers to that point included 2 for September. The annual total domestic attrition has increased by 20 over the 25SEP numbers. However, in the monthly totals on the website, they now show 23 in domestic for September. 20 + 2 = 23. They must be using a different system of arithmetic than the one I was taught.

I'm not going to try to reconcile the monthly with the annual other than I will continue posting monthly numbers as the difference between the last annual totals and the current annual totals.

Sep 2009 Year-to-date:
Dom------20------793
Intl---------7------152
Total------27------945
Retirees -18------158

Avg. monthly attrition is now 105/month through September. Note that the total attrition so far this year (945) is already greater than the total (882) for all of last year. However, most of this year's attrition has been quit, died, and got fired. Of the 882 total attrition last year, 549 or 62% were retirees. This year only 16.7% of the attrition is retirees.

 

[AAStew]

Attrition is attrition is attrition. As long as their seniority is above mine, I don't care how they left. (I do feel for the families of those who passed though).

 

[jimntx]

Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. It's just that I keep hearing from senior f/as who commute out of STL to ORD and DFW say "Just wait. There's a whole bunch of us who are going to retire soon." :huh:

 

[FA Mikey]

Hope they are not the same ones who were going to go when they got the 777 payout?

 

[AAStew]

I think we have to come to terms that they are never going to quit/retire. For many of them, this is the only thing they have in their lives. I hate to generalize, but many of them bought into the glamourous stewardess image when they were hired. They passed on many respectable offers of marriage, dates etc. They waited and waited for their rich white knight to come and sweep them off their feet, buy them their dream house in Palm Springs, etc. The years went by, the wrinkles and gray hairs set in. Reality bit them in the butt, and now this is their life. Most of them are sweet as all get out, but this is all they have.