eolesen
Veteran
- Jul 23, 2003
- 15,959
- 9,374
Please bear with my jaded opinions here as a former manager who has serious problems with how bass-ackward M&E management is.
I truly believe the rest of AA's management has made great strides in changing from how rigid things were under Crandall, to being a lot more empowered to try new things under Arpey.
Yet, despite making the move from blue uniform shirts and AA logo ties to golf shirts and khaki's, M&E still seems hopelessly stuck in the 70's...
No, that's really not my impression, having been a supervisor at the airports and working quite a bit with the M&E supv's on ETOPS flights out of JFK and ORD.
I think you'd agree that simply having an A&P doesn't make someone a competent mechanic. It just means they took coursework and passed an exam.
If the supervisors aren't turning wrenches or signing off work, why limit the gene pool? Anyone with a decent amount of AA experience and some common sense should be able to lead people and manage an operation just as effectively (if not moreoso) than the guy hired off the street.
I've had some great analysts work for me without college degrees, and I've had absolute oxygen thieves with their masters in information systems who still couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. One of the best shift managers I worked with at the airport was a former flight attendant. They had no idea how to do the agent's job, but had enough common sense to know what was and wasn't right.
I hate to use the word diversity because of its other connotations, but when you only cull your managers out of one area, you tend to get the same type of people. Start pulling from other areas, and the diversity of backgrounds might help things within M&E as a whole. Until they start changing how middle management is populated, I don't think you'll never see anything better at the MD and VP level, and quite honestly, some of the MD's and VP's I've seen in action wouldn't be qualified to manage the auto shop in STL if it weren't for their A&P's.
But again, that's just my jaded opinion.
I truly believe the rest of AA's management has made great strides in changing from how rigid things were under Crandall, to being a lot more empowered to try new things under Arpey.
Yet, despite making the move from blue uniform shirts and AA logo ties to golf shirts and khaki's, M&E still seems hopelessly stuck in the 70's...
You seem to be under the impression that all M&E supervisors do is approve CS's of PV's. Well they do a bit more than that.
No, that's really not my impression, having been a supervisor at the airports and working quite a bit with the M&E supv's on ETOPS flights out of JFK and ORD.
I think you'd agree that simply having an A&P doesn't make someone a competent mechanic. It just means they took coursework and passed an exam.
If the supervisors aren't turning wrenches or signing off work, why limit the gene pool? Anyone with a decent amount of AA experience and some common sense should be able to lead people and manage an operation just as effectively (if not moreoso) than the guy hired off the street.
I've had some great analysts work for me without college degrees, and I've had absolute oxygen thieves with their masters in information systems who still couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. One of the best shift managers I worked with at the airport was a former flight attendant. They had no idea how to do the agent's job, but had enough common sense to know what was and wasn't right.
I hate to use the word diversity because of its other connotations, but when you only cull your managers out of one area, you tend to get the same type of people. Start pulling from other areas, and the diversity of backgrounds might help things within M&E as a whole. Until they start changing how middle management is populated, I don't think you'll never see anything better at the MD and VP level, and quite honestly, some of the MD's and VP's I've seen in action wouldn't be qualified to manage the auto shop in STL if it weren't for their A&P's.
But again, that's just my jaded opinion.