Another Slap in the Face from APFA

[jimntx]

I doubt that AA would be willing to give up that much control, Mark. And, the idea that if there wasn't a trip for you at 0800 you were free until the following 0800 would just put their knickers in a twist. Mostly over the unpredictability of DFW weather in the summer or ORD weather in the winter.

Case in point, the last two days at DFW. All hell has broken loose from storms that moved rapidly across West Texas and were expected to close down DFW for 30 minutes to an hour at most. Instead the storms got to DFW and stalled for hours.

Reserve is not so bad as far as I am concerned. Lord knows it beats the straight reserve that most other major airlines have. If that were in effect at AA, I wouldn't live long enough to get off reserve.

Think about the f/as at the US Airways PIT base. At one point so many people had been furloughed that people with 29 years were on straight reserve because they were among the most junior f/as in the base.

And, by the way. There are reserve lines that have blocks of 6-7 days off in a row. They usually are the ones that have blocks of 5-6 days on. So, the month might be 6 on, 6 off,6 on, 5 off, 6 on, 1-2 off (depending on 30 or 31 day month).

The call-in period reserve system works fine at smaller airlines that have fewer bases. A friend of mine is at Frontier and they have that, but then they only have one f/a base to contend with. With bases spread all over the country, weather might play a role in the need for reserves almost any time of the year.

 

[MCI transplant]

<_< ----jimtnx, Wasn't STL originally supposed to be a secondary hub to take pressure off of both ORD, and DFW during just those times when weather becomes an issue?

 

[kirkpatrick]

It was, and it worked that way for a few months until 9/11 upset the applecart. I remember having passengers on LGA-STL flights who were going to OMA or DEN, who would have been routed through ORD before the acquisition.

MK

 

[MCI transplant]

It was, and it worked that way for a few months until 9/11 upset the applecart. I remember having passengers on LGA-STL flights who were going to OMA or DEN, who would have been routed through ORD before the acquisition.

MK

<_< O.K.!------ So now that we've recovered from 9/11, my question would be, why haven't we returned to STL? Or are we talking politics again here? :huh:

 

[Skymess]

My biggest beef with the reserve system is the way you're on call 24 hrs a day for up to six days straight. It's like perpetual standby, and because you're on duty, you have to have 24 hrs off after six days. This prevents long blocks of reserve days off, forcing the month to be broken up into little chunks of three here, four there.

I'd propose a system of call-in periods.

Absolutely agree with you. NWA and Tower Air both had A/B reserve systems. It worked out great.

The problem with AA is that their cruddy Sabre system doesn't enable them to make cheap changes. They would never cover the cost of change unless they could get something out of us. The promise of less sick calls because we have more flexibility simply won't cut it.

 

[kirkpatrick]

They sure had no trouble making programming changes when it came time to extend duty hours and shorten layovers, did they?

MK

 

[Skymess]

They sure had no trouble making programming changes when it came time to extend duty hours and shorten layovers, did they?

MK

But THAT was in THEIR favor. Welcome to AA my friend.
It's only good if it's good for them.

 

[FWAAA]

<_< O.K.!------ So now that we've recovered from 9/11, my question would be, why haven't we returned to STL? Or are we talking politics again here? :huh:

"Recovered?" That's an overstatement, if you ask me. I think a better term would be "survived."

How much smaller is AA today than June 30, 2001?

Mainline operating fleet 6/30/01: 904

Mainline operating fleet six years later: 697 (and at 3/31, 25 of those - MD-80s - were in temp storage).

Now, STL has that new runway and nowhere near enough airplanes to use it. After AA downsized STL in 2003, nobody (not even Southwest) moved in to replace the AA capacity cutbacks.

Meanwhile, DFW has new terminal space and ORD is finally going to reconfigure the airfield into parallel runways - which in early 2001 appeared to be a political impossibility. Daley changed his tune not long after September 11 when he realized that ORD was not the end-all, be-all and that the crackpipe dreams of a rural ORD replacement (ala DEN) were never going to happen.

Long-term, maybe STL rises again. ORD's new runway configuration will help but Daley isn't building a lot of new gates, so ORD will still be constrained.