Combined Travel Rules

[azstrik]

What an ass.

The employee may be the name on the paycheck, but the spouse is the one left to deal with the kids, particularly flight crews and those who have to commute to another city due to downsizing.

Their kids pay a price because airline work schedules aren't exactly conducive to being able to coach teams, be at all their games, help with Scouting, etc.


I know for a fact that my wife and kids had to live without all the stuff their friends with 9-5 parents were able to have & do, all because we were living on an airline salary and working under an airline's schedule.

You're obviously not married with kids. If you are, I pity your spouse & kids, because apparently you can't see past your own hands to realize how invested your family is in your job.

Well said, eolesan and how very true, coming from a 30 year veteran with 3 kids.  Can't even begin to count the Christmases and birthdays I have missed.  My family flying space available--dressed to the nines while others wear their pajamas--is small compensation, but one we still appreciate.

 

[Black Magic]

What an ass.

The employee may be the name on the paycheck, but the spouse is the one left to deal with the kids, particularly flight crews and those who have to commute to another city due to downsizing.

Their kids pay a price because airline work schedules aren't exactly conducive to being able to coach teams, be at all their games, help with Scouting, etc.


I know for a fact that my wife and kids had to live without all the stuff their friends with 9-5 parents were able to have & do, all because we were living on an airline salary and working under an airline's schedule.

You're obviously not married with kids. If you are, I pity your spouse & kids, because apparently you can't see past your own hands to realize how invested your family is in your job.

 
Do spouses and kids and have responsibilities, scheduling, and attendance penalties to the AA company for reporting to work on time??!  Seems to me dependents have much more scheduling leeway that doesn't effect AA operation.

 

[FWAAA]

Spouses may have their own jobs at a salt mine and the kids may have school or sports team responsibilities, so they may have less flexibility than retirees, for whom every day is Saturday.   

 

[AANOTOK]

I really don't even know why this is being debated???

 

[ContUNITEus]

I really don't even know why this is being debated???

Cuz' perhaps someone in HR is reading this and taking people's opinions into account.....

 

[ContUNITEus]

NOT!!!

 

[ContUNITEus]

I do have to say that it irks me that someone's SPOUSE, CHILDREN and so on, traveling alone (without the actual employee) could bump an actual employee with less seniority.
 
That's just "ohhhwww so wrong."  Hope that this is not the case.

 

[eolesen]

So be irked. That's the way the policy is, has been, and it's not likely to change as long as it's not a problem. And it hasn't been.

Is it reasonable to penalize a party who has no choice but to split up due to loads? We did that quite a bit, because getting two seats is easier than getting five -- my wife would take one of the kids, and I'd travel with the other two. Why should she travel at a lower priority?

 

[traderjake]

 Why should she travel at a lower priority?

 
Because she's not an active employee.
 
What's more important, your wife's vacation or an employee commutting to work?
 
That said as a former USAirways employee I'm  happy to be here and repect the methods of the larger group.    

 

[AANOTOK]

I have to admit, in my 30 years at AA, I have never heard one employee complain about the situation you guys are so upset about. Maybe they do, I don't know, but I have never even thought it as an issue.

 

[screwed again]

Live where you work. The whole commuting thing to me is a joke. So your station closed, or downsized, or whatever. Others should be penalized because you don't want to live where your job took you? 

 

[ContUNITEus]

eolesen I've not seen you so aggressive thus far, is everything OK?  This is not a dig at you.  Just saying what I observed.
 
I know that a lot of the things that are alien to you and others that have not seen a change in their policies in a long time, are pretty much normal somewhere else.  The rationale behind putting an actual employee ahead of a family member traveling alone is pure necessity to get the actual employees where they need to be, regardless of it being their sole responsibility.  This was the thought behind the policy at US and also at UA - at least the employee gets a chance to make it to work.  A long time ago, United had a standby code structure as follows: employee traveling alone 8A, employee traveling with immediate dependants at 8b and 8c for family members traveling alone.
 
It made perfect sense when I heard this particular reason.
 
I don't know what you do at AA, eolesen, but if you are not a crew member, chances are that you will wind up stuck somewhere, if the US Airways way of overbooking things takes place.  I have non-reved on AA flights as an external and also found that there always was a seat available.  But that is not, I repeat, not how things are at US...   US planes are crowded, more so than other airlines that I have seen.  As for my comment about you being hopefully a crew member.  Crew members have the ability to almost always get on, because most of the time, there is a jump seat or two available when needed.  Some F/A crews even prefer to have a jump seat over a crammed middle seat in the last unreclinable row.  Pilots commuting and non-reving most of the time wind up in the F/D.  So unless you are a crew member, you will be in for a surprise.  US Airways flights are very full, US Airways has a history of aggressively selling seats and filling up the planes.  I am sure that this will also be true at the new AA.  Thus, don't be surprised if down the line there is an adjustment to the D2 code.

 

[eolesen]

I managed jumpseat, non-rev travel and priority list procedures for AA from 1994 to 1997.

Just about every airline employee believes they've got a unique way of doing things, up until the day they go work for/with another airline, and start to see the exact same problems, only with different nouns/verbs attached to it.

So, you can claim that US or UA has the most unique non-rev situation of any airline in the world, but you'd be wrong.


Going to a fragmented/complex priority system like what UA had with the various levels of BP8's only creates a mess for the airport agents to deal with. And frankly, airport agents are so overwhelmed that they shouldn't have to deal with the inevitable pissing and moaning that comes when someone gets the wrong priority code or feels that someone got boarded out of order. There's already too much of that with three levels of D2, which was implemented after I moved into a different job.

If the new leadership decides that they have to fragment things, so be it. But so far, they seem to be looking at simplicity, not more complexity.

 

[jimntx]

Seats are just as short supply at AA today as they are at US Airways.  No employees do not go ahead of others in the same classification.  When AA said, "It is your choice to live out of base.  Do not expect us to get you to work.  That is your responsibility."  THEY MEANT WHAT THEY SAID, AND SAID WHAT THEY MEANT.  If you choose to live in Right-Next-to-the-End-of-the-World, Idaho which gets one rj, 3 times a week, I fail to see why someone going on vacation who chose to get up in time to be first to check in should have to step aside for you.

 

[Black Magic]

Call it what you will, but to me it's just not right that an employees kid traveling by themself can trump an active employee and be top of the standby list just because he has the fastest fingers on the smartphone.