Get Ready AA is Next !

[easy victor1]

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On 1/29/2003 2:46:38 PM Vikedog64 wrote:

Mikey.. You better get your head out of the sand. Denial about AMR's situation and blasting DAL's attempt to recapture market share only confirms peoples belief that things will only get worse. At this point it doesn't matter who is bleeding worse..we all are!
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Mikey...does have that problem of denial. I am sure he does not have any inside information about AMR's plans or he would had known about the TWA purchase/aquisition.

He also feels that we were a bankrupt airline of the like of Braniff, EA, PA and furthermore tells us [f/a] we gave up our scope clause. The bankruptcy, yes our third was done to get get rid of the Carl Icahn Karbu deal so AA could aquire us. This was a matter of logistics on AA's part. Unlike BN,EA,PA we were still in business. We were promised a fair and equitable senioity intergration from AA. I will say that APFA did not.

Now that I am furloughed after 18yrs of service at the end of Jan. We had 4200 f/a's at the time of the announcement of the aquistion/purchase. We are down to 2200. Guess where the future furloughs will be coming...the rest of us. Nice padding for a 2yr silver wing f/a.

Some of you may ask why I stayed with TWA. Well, all my medical was paid for by the company,my retirement benefits were better and I could fly high time and make more money than becoming a new hire on reserve at AA. We had some great work rules that we exchanged for wage concessions. We always recieved incredible work rules in exchange for monetary concessions. Our pax's loved us our employees were on the same page and the company had an open door policy. A sick call ,unless very abused was not a crime as it is at AA.

My W-2 came in today and after looking at all the money that I poured out to AA...prefunding,medical,disability and on and on. The $$$$was far better even at concessionary levels at TW.

I wish I could say that I was grateful to be working for AA, but I just can't. I am moving forward until my recall and will survive. The courts will decide our fates. Not AA or APFA.

 

[FA Mikey]

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On 1/29/2003 2:46:38 PM Vikedog64 wrote:

Mikey.. You better get your head out of the sand. Denial about AMR's situation and blasting DAL's attempt to recapture market share only confirms peoples belief that things will only get worse. At this point it doesn't matter who is bleeding worse..we all are!
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So you think the answer to all our problems is a new airline in AA. Like TW, a second operation that can not cross utilize. Sounds brilliant, cant understand why AA didn't attempt this sooner.

Why spend millions on a second operation, repainting and reconfiguring airplanes? Spending millions on advertising and building brand recognition from Zero. When you could use it in the current operation to offset losses.

 

[FA Mikey]

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On 1/29/2003 334 PM easy victor1 wrote:


Mikey...does have that problem of denial. I am sure he does not have any inside information about AMR's plans or he would had known about the TWA purchase/aquisition.
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I am in denial? Please, working for TW and losing money year after year in the biggest boom time our country has ever known. Waiting for the inevitable other shoe to fall. Who really believed in all those years of loss's that TW was going to rise from the ashes or just lose money thru eternity? But yes You think I am in denial.

Were in some deep do-do, but I am not going to be the first causality. Waste and fat must be trimmed from our company first.

 

[MrMarky]

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On 1/29/2003 1:01:11 PM FA Mikey wrote:
AA is not planning an airline in an airline.
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Hi Mikey, how are ya?

AA doesn't need to plan one. They've already got one--it's called TWA LLC--all fenced in and nowhere to go. Management uses it for service reductions and the AA unions use it for furlough fodder.

Any AA employee who doesn't think the $742 million AA spent on TWA was worth it is nuts (except Bagsmasher who is one of the few with a legitimate gripe about being put behind some TWA folks in seniority). After all, without TWA, there would be over 10,000 additional nAAtives on the streets right now, who are still working!

Actually one could argue that AA has two airlines within the airline if you want to include Eagle. And Eagle is truly low-cost. Their wages are where mainline AA is headed.

I hate to see it happening as much as anyone, but the terrible truth is that AA is losing altitude fast and there's a big mountain up ahead. It's just that you all are flying in a cloud right now and have the radar turned off, so it's easy to say you don't see the mountain. But without a major fuel dump, the airline will never regain enough altitude to clear that mountain.

By the time the AA unions agree to amend their contracts to the equivelant of TWA's last contracts it may be too little too late. In which case His Honor will do it for you. Welcome to the thriving Republican economy.

 

[FA Mikey]

Marky you are right AA has 3 airlines and is not doing well at making any of them work to well.

I understand republican economy, Not sure I would use the word thriving though.

AA doesn't seem to interested in change, outside of the media. They missed the first union management meeting. They are also fully aware of how long it takes to amend a contract. Its not an over night thing. There is just so much waste in product and utilization. I cant understand AA's unwillingness to solve these problems.

 

[FA Mikey]

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On 1/29/2003 5:30:22 PM MrMarky wrote:

I hate to see it happening as much as anyone, but the terrible truth is that AA is losing altitude fast and there's a big mountain up ahead. It's just that you all are flying in a cloud right now and have the radar turned off, so it's easy to say you don't see the mountain. But without a major fuel dump, the airline will never regain enough altitude to clear that mountain.

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Paging flight attendant Karen Black. Karen Black please pick up a white curtesy phone for a message.

 

[MrMarky]

Hi Mikey,

I can't disagree with your observations. As for the Republican thing, I had typed in a major expose' on their corrupt economic+foreign+war policies on my last post to you, but then I thought, Nah-it will just generate a big diatribe from all those die hard Republican posters here who have already demonstrated their utter ignorance by being Republican to begin with, so what's the use, it'll just get me entered into Ashcroft's little black book after Poindexter finds my post from his "Total Information Awareness" office in the Pentagon basement where he is setting up an operation to spy on every American.

So I'll leave that one alone. Back to AA, things look bleak, and I'm worried. Have you or your union thought about organizing a list of all the waste you talk about? It seems like a good suggestion box wouldn't hurt right now, although it's probably small potatoes compared to what it will really take to fix things. What's the mood among your co-workers? Do people see the need for concessions or is there the same denial and resistance one has seen all over the US and UA boards before they filed bk?

We can criticize AA all we want, but the bottom line is that when push comes to shove, we have to be concerned about their financial health and ways to recover. The company line and analyst line seems to be they've found $2 billion and they need $2 billion more and labor is the only place left to find it. What do you think?

Take care,

mAArky

 

[Hopeful]

Mr. Markey:
You exemplify typical Democrat ultra left liberalism.
Had "BJ's Under the Desk Billy Boy" done anything, and I say anything, after they first tried to bring down the twin towers in 1993, we might be in a different state today. Had "Monica's Main Squeeze" did anything, and I mean anything, after the inspectors were thrown out of Irag, we may be in a different state today. Had "Labor Friendly Bill" let the pilots strike for 5 days instead of 5 minutes, we, as laborers might be in a different state today. Good thing you and your likes were not around when Hitler was doing his thing! After all, old Adolph did not pose a threar to the United States as he did Europe.

Now, I'll leave that subject.
A lot of the waste I see at AA in Aircraft Maintenance is the number of Supervisors and Managers that have been hired since Carty took over, increasing their ranks threefold. And yes, we have relayed those concerns to Carty. No answer whatsoever. When AA was the ON-TIME machine for 5 years, you couldn't find a supervisor for days. Labor costs account for 40% of AA. So let's just cut labor costs 40%. You don't need an MBA from Wharton to figure that one out. After all, top executive compensation accounts for .5% of AA costs. Just cut top executive compensation by .5%

 

[WingNaPrayer]

That "direct line" to Don Carty doesn't go to Don Carty, it goes to corporate security first. Therefore, if the company would allow for anonymous submissions they would get a helluva lot more ideas submitted. They also need to make provisions for the general public to submit ideas, I mean, they fly every day and a lot of them are sharp business people who more than likely see a lot of things that the company could be made aware of.

The way it's set up now, it's nothing more than a beotch and complain clearing house that get's employees tagged by the company.

 

[Hopeful]

All suggestions to Carty have been signed. Still no answer! Cigar, FAMikey?

 

[BillLumbergh]

Lets leave the politicing to the other forums...

 

[FA Mikey]

Marky, your prediction was correct. You had to know that is was Bill Clinton's fault. Doesn't that get old?

AA has set up a box for such suggestions. Its a direct link to Don Carty's office. They go through and direct each suggestion for review. Flight service on its web site list all ideas submitted, whether they were approved, denied or pending. They have also offered up a total cost savings for the F/A's at almost 70 million.

We know its serious, we know the stuff is deep. We also know there are still millions that should be cut before going to employees pay.

 

[Hopeful]

What else can you say when the CEO asks to meet with the unions and, along with the president, just doesn't bother to attend!

 

[FA Mikey]

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On 1/30/2003 8:35:20 AM WingNaPrayer wrote:

That "direct line" to Don Carty doesn't go to Don Carty, it goes to corporate security first. Therefore, if the company would allow for anonymous submissions they would get a helluva lot more ideas submitted. They also need to make provisions for the general public to submit ideas, I mean, they fly every day and a lot of them are sharp business people who more than likely see a lot of things that the company could be made aware of.

The way it's set up now, it's nothing more than a beotch and complain clearing house that get's employees tagged by the company.
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How odd, here we all thought Don Carty sat around all day just reading employee e-mails. Anonymous submissions, why would we need to do that? The general public can write call or email AA at anytime. No one is stopping them.

 

[TWAFA007]

Aloha,

Well the future for UAL doesnt look very good. The pilots & the F/As are already up in arms over UAL plans to replace them with a new airline with much a much lower pay scale. This just after they all, except for the mechanics, voted for pay cuts to help them out. Thousands of Pilots, F/As, and Mech are going to lose their jobs.

I know that DALs Song will use high paid DAL pilots to fly their planes. Wonder what DAL will do to the poor nonunion F/As?

I feel there will be huge labor unrest thru out the the airline industry in the very near future. As management goes after their biggest cost, pay. AA will be next.

ALOHA, 007