Here comes the BK threat from the company

[Buck]

Your brother is a Crew Chief, ok what is he a Crew Chief of?

While I understand what you're saying - wouldn't bankruptcy have been worse for AA's employees? And as for TWA - that happened before 9/11, and before Delta, Northwest, United and USAirways filed for bankruptcy.

I know that TWA was before 9/11 but it was after deregulation of the industry. Deregulation also opened the field to massive competition and the fight for real estate, land as well as gates a significant airports. AA had cash reserves and spent some of it on TWA and the preventing of a takeover, ala Trump style....

 

[limit]

AA should have laid of a bunch of people post 9/11.
This is what I and the majority of the people I work with expected to happen.
When this did not happen most of us started thinking that they are probably
waiting for some of the other carriers to fold.
Soon enough we were told the exact same thing ,by supervisors and managers up to level 5 ,both privately
and on some of the rare crew meetings they had with us.
Of course I always take with a grain of salt what they say,especially since many of them seemed to be unable not to include a lie in every sentence ,and had done so for years,decades for some of them.
But... if this was truly the sentiment at HDQ they are a lot more stupid than what we give them credit for,and truly bad business people.
The idea that they thought they just could outlast the competition and not realize that the GE's, Boeing's, Airbus,and citibanks would go out of their way to protect their investments ,and income is ..........
Not to mention all the government officials trying to cut deals for their constituents.
All I can think of is ;are they for real in charge of this place?
Whatever the case, come spring of 03 it has been suggested and reported by many that AA went to the unions (at least I think this was said of the twu) and asked for concessions.
It has been said that AA gave twu the option of layoffs or concessions.
Regardless of what the twu decided to do, if this is really true, the idea that they allowed their workers to point the company a certain direction is absolutely pathetic in my eyes.
It just shows a management team at the top with out a single clue.
Can anyone of you guys see uncle Bob doing this?He made his share of bad decisions ,but at least they were his own.
As I said this is what we have been told.
Dont know if both of these are true or not so......

If they are ,and combined with the day to day mismanagement of gargantuan proportions in maintainance where I am,
the total lack of a plan for success that not only wall street but even us lowly M&E employees can see with ease,
the practically total capitulation to their competitors,
but above all their total inability and beyond belief incompetence when dealing with employee relations, only brings me to one conclusion.
They are the problem from the git go.
NO doubt.
THEY have brought this company to this point.
This is what I think Commavia.
Unfortunately (for us workers) I also believe the questions you have raised and what you have said in general is spot on.
I also believe WT is saying it like it is,it hurts to hear it from both of you ,and EO too...I wish it was not so.
So now what you ask?
I do not know .
Time will tell when and how this theater of the absurd will play out.
I will be here to the end,one way or another.

 

[eolesen]

My guess is tht Bob would not have given the choice of jobs vs pay cuts. Work rules would have been gutted, but pay left alone.

And I suspect that would have been just as hard to sell as the pay cuts... Maybe harder, since a Yes vote at the junior end of the list would be a vote to be laid off.


Oh, and the assertion that the decision would be his own? Bob used a lot of consultants. It just didn't get a lot of attention back in the day because there wasn't all this instant & anonymous communication, but he's the one who brought BGC in to be the house consulting agency. I remember having to deal with them in 1994...

All this hindsight discussion is great fun, but still doesn't do much to fix the current problem...

 

[Buck]

My guess is that Bob would not have given the choice of jobs vs pay cuts. Work rules would have been gutted, but pay left alone.

And I suspect that would have been just as hard to sell as the pay cuts... Maybe harder, since a Yes vote at the junior end of the list would be a vote to be laid off.


Oh, and the assertion that the decision would be his own? Bob used a lot of consultants. It just didn't get a lot of attention back in the day because there wasn't all this instant & anonymous communication, but he's the one who brought BGC in to be the house consulting agency. I remember having to deal with them in 1994...

All this hindsight discussion is great fun, but still doesn't do much to fix the current problem...

In my opinion, it is a two part equation. The company continuing to attempt to run a major airline the way it was ran in the past by holding on to real estate ( routes and gates ) while expanding and not having the assets to do so. Then there is the TWU who consistently plies their trade of a unionism of the past. The TWU has failed to see that the industry has changed and operations cannot continue as they are. One thing in the union must give, the number of members or the quality of the members.

 

[Bob Owens]

Well, since nobody has actually responded to my post - other than to mock or grandstand - I would be interested to hear what strategy AA should have followed. What should the plan have been?

What should AA have done? Cut, cut, cut but kept wages and benifits as they were. Those who were laid off would have had a good job to come back to. We would have seen more guys retire. Their dependability would be up there with SWA and more than likely their profits would as well. They would have had a motivated workforce instead of a demoralized defeated one.

Delta makes more than we do, United Mechanics just rejected a TA that was better than the one we rejected, those are the only two surviving legacy carriers, NWA was bought by Delta and CAL was bought by UAL. The UAL contract was a carbon copy of the CAL agreement that pushed through by workers in Houston who apparently were looking for some merger protection language. Jet Blue tops out at $40/hr, we top out over $6/hr less. We wont go into SWA or UPS but the fact is that their structure never changed and at best they kept pace with inflation.

The arguement always falls back to OH, and leaves out the fact that AA always enjoyed a labor cost advantage over their competitors. Well the company has never stated that doing OH in house, with OSMs and other low cost Title 1 workers was more costly than outsourcing, and their behaviour over the last six years would indicate that it was not.

In a way I can sympathize with Jim Reams dilemma, he gets very good quality out of the bases but even well overhauled planes break down, thats why pretty much every carrier has line maintenance, but with a severely demoralized Line Maint worforce, where they can look across the ramp (UPS is just opposite AA's Hangar 10 in JFK) and see guys doing the same exact job but making a lot more money, he cant capitalize on it. He has finance and HR running negotiations blocking him from making any meaningful changes. One example is Geo pay, acceptable to the bases, who are the majority, and essentail if he expects to get better performance out of his cornerstone Line maint hubs like LAX, MIA and NYC. The motives of the outsiders seem to beare driven more by their own egos than by business sense, but then again who ever heard of HR running a business? They claim they dont want to set a precedence but they already have through flex rates and the fact that they pay their mechanics in Europe in excess of $45/hr. In return they make a lot of money off those guys, Europe brings in more 3P revenue per worker than the Domestic operation. In fact the company wants to increase staffing and send more work over there despite the fact that they pay them around $12/hr more and have to give them up to six times as much paid time off than their US counterparts. So the fact is the company already has GEO pay, they just refuse to give it to us, and in return, despite the best Overhauled planes in the industry they get to sit at the bottom and watch their ETOPs trips go over to the hangar instead of over to Europe, Asia or South America.

I see where some are saying that now that the 7 day labor loan, and 1/7th rule is off the table that Tulsa may be willing to throw us all under the bus. The arguement doesnt make sense because I would think they need the money and want more vacation as well. I hope that the doomsday guys are wrong and Tulsa does stand strong but either way I dont play by rules that are stacked against me if I can avoid it, if we dont get what we need, ratified be damned, AA sure isnt going to get what they need out of us. I wont go back to my peers and say "We need to put this in our rear view mirrors and do what is best for AA". I will preach that we should follow the lead that the company has set, "give as little as you can get away with and take whatever you can. AA will stay at or near the bottom. Like I've said, we can afford to be let down again.

 

[limit]

E I have to agree this is not solving the problem.
I do not expect to do so on this board.
As for the consultants bob brought in I did not have a problem with that, a good manager asks for options and ideas.
Then he makes HIS decision.
In my book asking the twu which way to go is proof positive of the absence of clear direction in the bussiness plan.
But that's just me.

 

[Frank Szabo]

... snip

In my book asking the twu which way to go is proof positive of the absence of clear direction in the business plan.
But that's just me.

I second that motion.

 

[WorldTraveler]

my brother is ramp crew chief.. not sure of your terminology but I guess Fleet Service Crew Chief...

Limit,
given that AA mgmt has more recently said they expect to be able to close the gap in pay with competitors as those competitors have to pay more to get their mergers approved by their labor groups - notably a reference to UA - then it probably is likely that AA mgmt thought they could just outlast a number of competitors and didn't need to take action on their own.
Historically the ratio of airlines emerging from BK was not great... but NW - the last of the big six at the time to exit BK - did so 4 years ago... and the DL/NW merger was pretty well expected.... UA/CO not far behind.
So the question is why AA could not see the need to be more aggressive in dealing with what was the obvious industry reality.
.
As for why bother to talk about what will happen to turn things around, there are a number of people who have pretty good insights into the industry... if nothing else there are enough people who have access to information that would indicate where a company is headed.
.
What still seems missing in any discussions is any realistic plans to turn AA around... reduce costs somehow to levels at which AA can compete.. and slow if not turn around the revenue losses and competitive incursions that AA has suffered.
.
Perhaps AA will come out w/ a surprise plan that none of us thought of... but history says that the longer it takes to put a viable plan in motion, the bigger the hole is that the company and its employees have to dig out of.
.

 

[AANOTOK]

What should AA have done? Cut, cut, cut but kept wages and benifits as they were. Those who were laid off would have had a good job to come back to. We would have seen more guys retire. Their dependability would be up there with SWA and more than likely their profits would as well. They would have had a motivated workforce instead of a demoralized defeated one.

I would have to agree with that Bob. Of course having twenty- one years back in 2003, that was a pretty easy decision. My understanding is that at least for Fleet, the proposal was on the table and the TWU would not bring it for a vote. Guess what, not only did they get their money, holidays, vacations....etc, they also closed all the stations and got the layoffs they were looking for anyway.

But bottom line, that destroyed this airline. Management of both AA and the TWU are the complete reason for the demise of American Airlines!

 

[Frank Szabo]

... snip


What still seems missing in any discussions is any realistic plans to turn AA around... reduce costs somehow to levels at which AA can compete.. and slow if not turn around the revenue losses and competitive incursions that AA has suffered.

OK, WT. We all are quite aware of this "compete" thing and the reduction of costs. If you and others are going to continue spewing the same words, how about one of you management-types making some definitions as to where these supposed "high costs" are coming from?

All of the pro-management boys/girls on this site continually cite work rules - besides showing up and doing one's assigned task, what exactly are you referring to? Surely there are specifics you could enlighten the rabble with since the term is so loosely used by management and their apologists..

Perhaps AA will come out w/ a surprise plan that none of us thought of...

No other outside management firms have been engaged recently (that we are aware of) other than those infestations already on the property. An original thought amongst the Centrepork CPAs/marketing boys is highly unlikely - they all probably need a crowbar to get their starched drawers on in the morning.

... but history says that the longer it takes to put a viable plan in motion, the bigger the hole is that the company and its employees have to dig out of.

That sir, is a very true statement, but it would seem there are no viable plans - the accountants are waiting for a businessman to show them what to do. Sadly, he retired in 2001.

 

[Buck]

my brother is ramp crew chief.. not sure of your terminology but I guess Fleet Service Crew Chief...

How can a Fleet Service Crew Chief begin to understand the conflict between the maintenance of the aircraft and the company and the running of an airline?

No disrespect to your brother or his profession. However, if the mechanics ever break away from the TWU, I have no doubt that the company will come after them.

 

[Kev3188]

How can a Fleet Service Crew Chief begin to understand the conflict between the maintenance of the aircraft and the company and the running of an airline?

What does that have to do w/anything? He only mentioned his brother as his "tie" to AA.

Are you implying that an FSC is somehow incapable of grasping the systemic conflicts that are occurring?

As for AA's future, an FSC is just as much of an employee as an AMT. The way I see it, you're all in this together.

No disrespect to your brother or his profession. However, if the mechanics ever break away from the TWU, I have no doubt that the company will come after them.

That's at least 10 or 12 T-shirts away yet...

 

[Buck]

What does that have to do w/anything? He only mentioned his brother as his "tie" to AA.

Are you implying that an FSC is somehow incapable of grasping the systemic conflicts that are occurring?

You need to read the whole post. As I said no disrespect. I know very little of the aspects of the job or the conditions surrounding that job. I am just stating that his brother possibly knows little concerning the maintenance of aircraft. In other words his brother knows as much concerning the mechanic contract as I do the Fleet Service contract.

As for AA's future, an FSC is just as much of an employee as an AMT. The way I see it, you're all in this together.

That's true, for now and could be for the very long time you speak of.

As for AA's future, an FSC is just as much of an employee as an AMT. The way I see it, you're all in this together.

That's true, for now and could be for the very long time you speak of.




That's at least 10 or 12 T-shirts away yet...

Are you implying that an FSC is somehow incapable of grasping the systemic conflicts that are occurring?


You need to read the whole post. As I said no disrespect. I know very little of the aspects of the job or the conditions surrounding that job. I am just stating that his brother possibly knows little concerning the maintenance of aircraft. In other words his brother knows as much concerning the mechanic contract as I do the Fleet Service contract.


That's at least 10 or 12 T-shirts away yet...
And some slogans as well

 

[Kev3188]

I have been reading it.

It's taken plenty of twists and turns (remember the OP was about APA), but it's about AA as a whole, not just M & E.

 

[Frank Szabo]

10-12 slogans and Tshirts away from an agreement.

Truer words were never spoken.