A/C FIXER
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They're swallowing something and it isn't their pride.
Gerard Arpey on NBC's Today Show
- Thread starter AirLUVer
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I agree. That would solve everything. In addition, we need to go back to one big telephone company - AT&T. No need for competition in long distance telephone service. We also need to unravel this internet-thingy and go back to looking things up in books and communicating by telephone or snail-mail letters.
Customers couldn't care less how much (or how little) the help is paid or what they gave up in 2003. AA has filled over 82% of its seats so far this year, on target for a new record. That's 82% of the seats at profitable fares, higher than they were during 2002-06. AMR's profit this year will likely exceed Southwest's profit for the first time since 1999. Sure, WN takes care of its employees, but customers don't care. They'll fly WN if that's their style (and if the fare's ok) and they'll fly AA if that's their style (and the fare's ok).
Some of the vocal employees hate Arpey, but just like the Dallas business magazine - he's in line to win a whole hell of a lot of accolades in the coming months/years for the miracle that happened at AA from May 1, 2003 to the present. Billions of debt repaid, employees willing to work for lots less than in the "good old days" and a return of profits and record-high load factors (proving that customers don't give a rat's ass about the pay or working conditions of the workers). Not all CEOs were able to preside over such a miraculous turnaround.
Yes, I know who paid for that miraculous turnaround. The employees. The underpaid, underappreciated employees. Think customers care about that? Keep on dreaming.
Ken MacTiernan
Veteran
Yes, I know who paid for that miraculous turnaround. The employees. The underpaid, underappreciated employees. Think customers care about that? Keep on dreaming.
With an attitude like yours the customers will never care and our professions will continue to rot.
With an attitude like yours the customers will never care and our professions will continue to rot.
Please help me discern my "attitude," omnipotent one. You're underpaid and underappreciated, and nobody (other than your colleagues) gives a damn.
I've tried to spread the word about the plight of the working man on my flights, but all I get are blank stares by fellow passengers. Most want to discuss American Idol, Britney Britney or Lindsay Lohan. None seem interested in discussing the low pay exchanged by the workers for their labor. And if I do find someone willing to listen - do you think passengers are gonna want to pay higher ticket prices so the FAs can make more money? So the $200/hr 777 Captain can make even more money? So the $32/hr mechanic can make more money?
If your professions are "rotting" as you claim, it's certainly not because of the customers who will hand $22+ billion to the company for passenger and freight services this year. Your unions (which you have been unwilling/unable to replace for over 20 years) have screwed you. They didn't negotiate real upside "success sharing" for you (other than 35 million shares) and now you bitterly take that out on the customers and jealously discuss the management's take. Customers like me couldn't give a rat's ass that you and your union incompetently gave away the store, and doubtful they ever will.
Your unions let you down. To the tune of billions of dollars. And that's my fault HOW?
comatose
Senior
Exactly what the company likes to see........pitting work groups against each other.
Wretched Wrench
Veteran
- Apr 21, 2003
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No, it's not just the unions. And, No, it's not your fault as an individual. However, in a very general sense, the consumer is partly to blame for a lot of shoddy merchandise and service in this country. Some consumers will buy only the cheapest product. This has resulted in a race to the bottom, as the supply of cheap labor streaming across our borders and the jobs streaming to third world countries. And, as with so many countries, the high birth rate of the cheap labor segment of our population adds to this.
It has reached the point where I have difficulty finding a product made with care or a store with good help. Friday I had a discussion with two middle managers at Lowe's, and they told me that they were helpless. The store had laid off help because of declining sales. So, now, more customers say, "this is my last trip to this store", and sales will decline even further. That store has had six managers in either two or four years, I forget. One of the managers in the conversation put it quite delicately, saying that "The company is hiring people with very little sense of responsibility." Circuit City fired all the higher paid clerks and offered them their jobs back at lower rates. Nardelli did rather the same thing at HD. Nardelli actively courted managers with military officer experience. Many of them left when they realized how his management style portended a shipwreck. He fired the better help and hired street people. Walmart hires the cheapest help they can get. They do try, but are strictly non compos mentis. The managers are too harried to do a good job, and their hands are tied, or they are just plotting their next promotion. AA has drastically lowered their hiring standards, as well.
I used to be able to fix my own VCRs with a new belt or idler or such. Now, if I can get it open, I find everything is weak and failing, and parts are non-existant anyway. The major manufacturers no longer make their own stuff, they just farm it out to several factories that put a decal on their own junk. Or, they contract a factory to make something of their own design. But each factory makes the product a little differently, and also sells the product under different names, which are then copied by yet another company. The consumer accepts all of this and is resigned to poor quality with very limited durability and zero product support. Most of our immigrants are from countries where poor quality is the norm, so the trend grows. As an example, not immigration-related, China sells a lot of cars in Africa, where there is a lesser expectation of quality. Fiat tried to make cars in Mexico, but the precision required just didn't happen.
So, to end this rant, it is not just our union or just the customer, but goes way deeper into our society. Economics, demographics, consumerism, MTV, Atari, you name it.
Don't take it personally, and don't ask how you are to blame. It's not just you.
But, you knew that.
Ken MacTiernan
Veteran
WOA Nelly!!!
I never said it was your fault. I too blame my union for giving away the store with NO snapback or even a "cross my heart & hope to die" promise from management to return what was loaned/stolen. (Of course management would have their fingers crossed behind their back if they ever swore.
So you say you try to talk to the empty headed, American Idol/Britney Spears brain dead individuals. Well, keep talking to them and everyone else.
eolesen
Veteran
- Jul 23, 2003
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If it was so important, why didn't the interviewer ask about it? Why isn't it front page news in any of the mainstream media or perhaps mentioned on blog sites -not- run by airline employees?
Sure, it's an important issue to you, and perhaps another 50,000 people who get paychecks from AMR. But to the millions of people watching the Today Show, it's less than insignificant, since it is something that impacts fewer than 1/600th of the legal US population.
Now, if AMR gave snapbacks and airfares go up by $10/ticket because for some strange reason, every other airline actually matched the fare increase, I can guarantee that the Today Show would be covering it. And they'd be demonizing the greedy employees you want them to pity. That's how the mainstream media works now...
TWU-GOTTA-GO
Advanced
- Nov 22, 2006
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Fares went up $10 today after SWA raised them, does that mean I'm getting my money back?
Yes, this country is in such awful shape. We should be more like Zimbabwe or Bangladesh or one of those places where the neighborhood Circuit City staff are much more knowledgeable about consumer electronics. I bet the people there don't suffer from those indignities like we have to in the U.S. Lucky bastards. They've got it all figured out.
Hackman
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- Sep 30, 2003
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I don't know ole, you seem to have the liberal media figured out, I don't.
When the sh*t storm of greedy executives vs. the Baffled and Broke employees comes to AMR in a year or so, then maybe it will be on for all to see.
I'm sure the AMR management propaganda machine will then be in full swing. :down:
Apparently the airline employees themselves don't care all that much about the situation, since they continue to come to work every day under these supposedly unbearable conditions. Sure, they whine a lot, but they still show up, and there are still plenty of people applying for vacancies. So if airline employees are tolerating the situation and doing their part to make the system work, what do you want airline customers to do exactly?
I am also curious whether AA employees realize they really don't have it that badly off compared to a lot of their passengers. Those people paying cheap fares you criticize so much -- just how many of them have the relatively generous health care plan and defined benefit pensions that AA employees have? Also, I am still waiting for someone to tell me what an AA mechanic makes in an average year. It would be interesting to see how that stacks up to the average bargain farehunting passenger's salary and to the median U.S. per capita income.
Given all that, just how much sympathy do you expect the average traveller to have for the average airline employee?
eolesen
Veteran
- Jul 23, 2003
- 15,959
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Hackman, when NWA locked out AMFA, there wasn't any huge outpouring of national support for the meltdown in progress. The pilots managed to get some sympathy in the past couple months, but those folks suffered far more than you did, and it didn't make the news outside of MSP or DTW. So, I don't think you'll be getting a whole lot of support outside of perhaps TUL and DFW, where the percentage of airline employees/families make up a larger percentage of the local population.
You sir, are correct. I was at a small out station. The majority of pax had no clue as to why or even if we were on strike until they saw the picket sign. The pilots and F/A's would avoid us by using other entrances. The passengers did not care. The only ones who did care were other staunch union members from other industries who were not flying NWA because of the strike. They were a very small minority. We did have SWA AMT's picket with us. Be prepared to have $99 fare passengers laugh at you when you tell them how much you make and why you are striking. They really do not care. At least at our little station down south they didn't. It was different in DTW and MSP.
