American Building $250 million hotel and conference center at heart of operations

[jimntx]

Caveat: tense of verb "is building" is premature. Ft. Worth has not yet issued a building certificate for this planned construction.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business...-250-million-hotel-conference-center-heart-hq

Interesting quote: "The building will replace the facilities that served as the airline's flight attendant school since the 1950s and will be built on the same site, said Kirk Hotelling, American's managing director of campus properties. The center will serve as a training and educational space for employees from all areas of the airline.

I thought that the Flight Attendant training center (on State Highway 360 southwest of DFW) was sold to that insurance company (which used it as a training center) during bankruptcy period. Did AA buy it back? Or was original transfer just a long-term lease? The insurance company did in fact use most of the facility for several years. Just curious.

 

[UPNAWAY]

The Crew hotel is being demolished now, that's why they had the story about moving the iconic staircase to the Museum. By all accounts it was bad with tiny outdated rooms and mold problems. None of the class rooms or main cafeteria are being replaced at this time, not sure if long term they have plans to replace them. The Insurance company has a small space in the Eagle wing is all I am aware of. Not sure about leases/ownership though. The property is all leased from DFW airport.

BTW Non Revs could stay there if room was available for like $50 I had heard. I wonder if that will be true at the new place?

 

[jimntx]

When I was still flying, the insurance company had most of the space on the first floor except for the "mockup" a/c cabins. We had to go to one of the mockups to check-in for recurrent training because there was no office space on 1st floor belonging to AA. I was told that the building had been sold to the insurance company and we were leasing back just the minimum space needed. Since men were not given rooms in the Lodge when I was active, (and I've been retired now for almost 2 years,) I can't comment on conditions in the rooms though I never heard flight attendants who were staying there say anything particularly negative about the Lodge.

 

[eolesen]

Management of the training & conference center was outsourced to another company when I was still working for AA.. .Dolce managed the hotel space, ran the cafeteria and booked the classroom space not being used by AA, but I don't know that ownership of the building ever changed.

 

[jimntx]

Well, that makes sense. As I said, I was told (evidently incorrectly) that American had sold the training center. Think how much they saved by outsourcing the management of the building. (not)

 

[eolesen]

Think of it in context, Jim... Back in 2004 or so when that was first done, there was no new-hire training going on. Letting a company that runs hotels and conferences as their primary line of business fill up the unneeded space made more sense than having someone from training trying to do it.

I'd hope they're probably working on a commission basis e.g. if they don't fill the space, they get nothing, but who knows...

 

[jimntx]

Point taken. Thanks.