It's Going To Be A Bumpy Ride
- Thread starter Flyboy4u
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KCFlyer
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Sorry, but a "sick out" over the holidays is also very wrong to the customer, who are the ones who provide a large chunk of the "revenues" that go towards your paycheck. The company may be "wronging" you - but I've always heard that two wrongs don't make a right.Flyboy4u said:
WingNaPrayer
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More revenue is generated through cargo than butts in the cheap seats. Planes without passengers, but still holding cargo can fly without FAs.
I am a flight attendant and the only time I hear talk of a sickout is on this board. Every crew I have flown with in the last month doesn't have a clue what I am talking about when I ask them about it. I think there is a vocal minority of 1 who thinks that if they say it enough it will take hold.
I am no big fan of AA at the moment but the last thing I am going to do is screw over a fellow flight attendant by calling in sick when I'm not, especially on a holiday. How many of us were screwed over with reassignments over the summer, felt like ####, didn't it? I know it did when my turn turned into a full 3 day and that was just any other weekend, how pissed would I have been if that had been 4th of July or Labor Day?
If AA were smart they would have APFA promote a holiday sickout because more flight attendants are PO'ed at APFA than are with the company and would show up for work just to spite the union. 😛
The one thing I will agree with wrx on is RECALL JOHN WARD, et al.
One last thing, welcome back to the 350 recalled flight attendants, I am glad they are coming back instead of cancelling overage leaves, seems like everyone should be happy. I hope the worst is behind us and this is the first positive step to the long climb back. I only have 5 more months with American and am counting the bid periods until I am out of here but for most people this is their long term future.
Mike-BOS
I am no big fan of AA at the moment but the last thing I am going to do is screw over a fellow flight attendant by calling in sick when I'm not, especially on a holiday. How many of us were screwed over with reassignments over the summer, felt like ####, didn't it? I know it did when my turn turned into a full 3 day and that was just any other weekend, how pissed would I have been if that had been 4th of July or Labor Day?
If AA were smart they would have APFA promote a holiday sickout because more flight attendants are PO'ed at APFA than are with the company and would show up for work just to spite the union. 😛
The one thing I will agree with wrx on is RECALL JOHN WARD, et al.
One last thing, welcome back to the 350 recalled flight attendants, I am glad they are coming back instead of cancelling overage leaves, seems like everyone should be happy. I hope the worst is behind us and this is the first positive step to the long climb back. I only have 5 more months with American and am counting the bid periods until I am out of here but for most people this is their long term future.
Mike-BOS
Check the facts. For the first nine months of 2003, cargo revenue for AMR was $409 million yet total passenger revenue for AMR was $11.8 billion. That makes passenger revenue 28 times greater than cargo revenue. Cargo revenue was 3% of AMR's total revenue for the first nine months. A mere 3%.WingNaPrayer said:
http://www.amrcorp.com/investor/quarterlie...ies/22_3q03.htm
Looks like cargo does bring in some serious change, but passenger revenue (even at the low fares) still pays the bills.
WingNaPrayer
Veteran
AA's fares must be simplified. There are far too many fare structures and the rules that go with each take an entire tree to print. Passengers know that this many fares, coupled with all the rules and hoops of fire you have to jump through to get them, are purposely designed to confuse and extract revenue from unknowing customers.FWAAA said:
Again, simplified fare rules will make all the difference in increasing revenue, not to mention the fact that they are artificially low - fares have to increase and soon or the party is gonna get mighty damn dull!
Garfield1966
Veteran
Wing,WingNaPrayer said:
I am guessing you are some what new to AA and the airline s by your statement (I do not mean that as a slam). Back in 1992 or so (I forgot when) AA introduce Value Pricing (at least that is what I think it was called). It was exactly what you said the Airlines need. There were 14 and 7 day adv fares and a Full fare in the main cabin. It applied to the entire system. AA got rid of all the discounts, No AARP, No senior, no AAA … nothing. It reservations we loved it. The passengers loved it.
Not sure exactly what the events were that killed it but I do know that one airline here and one there started to offer a discount here and there to gain a market advantage and with in a few months we were back to square one.
Unless it is government mandated, it will not work. Studies have proved that with as little as a $1 fare difference, a carrier will loose market share. And if airline “X†thinks they can steal some of our revenue you can be damn sure they will.
So, it’s been tried. Failed miserably.
KCFlyer
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What happened was this - Northwest launched a "super duper highly restricted fare sale". Rather than standing pat and letting NWA lose their shirt, Crandall decided to "teach them a lesson" and responded. Had he not done that, I do believe that Value Pricing would have worked - in order for NWA to be able to offer those great, but limited, fares, they would have had to continue the practice of raping the business passenger. THOSE guys would have booked away from NWA in droves and if NWA had to match those fares that were not 21-day-advance-stay-over-a-Saturday-return-on-even-numbered-Tuesday, they could not have made a profit and would have had to abandon the loss leaders. Crandall was so far ahead of his time on this one...too bad his ego had to get in the way.Garfield1966 said:
jimntx
Veteran
I know you were just joking, but tain't funny McGee as they used to say on the radio. For APFA to promote a sickout would be a gross violation of Federal law. Remember what happened to the AA pilots awhile back?meechy36 said:
Also, on the recall...
I know of at least one flight attendant who is on an overage leave who is trying to get a hardship termination of his leave. As he is senior to the people being recalled, he should have been awarded a return before any furloughees. It's great for them to be recalled (hopefully, I'll be included in the next recall), but the contract should have been followed at least to the extent of OFFERING early return to the OVLs. I doubt there would have been many takers, and the 352 who are returning still would have gotten a recall letter.
I know the argument that if you are awarded a leave, you should stick with it, but people's circumstances change--often beyond their control. And the contract says that partnerships, then OVLs will be cancelled before any furloughed flight attendants are recalled.
I'm also bothered by the fact that there are almost 1400 f/a's on OVL right now and we haven't finished grounding the Fokkers. And, I haven't seen any change to the plan to ground some of the S80s and 767s in 2004. Seems to me that the overage can only increase through 2004 because we will have fewer and fewer a/c.
What happens to the 352 if not enough people renew their OVLs in June?
WingNaPrayer
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Some great responses here, I'm enjoying everyone's opinions on the issues, and hope to address a lot of them in my annual letter to stockholder relations.
I must however, disagree that WRX is a majority of one, and appears to be the only poster who advocates a "sick out" as a viable deterrent to detrimental treatment by AA as an employer towards it's FA's as employees. I too advocate such an action. I advocate labor standing up for itself and demanding the recognition either by benefit or pay, for the invaluable services they perform for this airline.
While there may be a vocal minority on this board, it doesn't exist across the system. I'm blatantly asking employees that I come in contact with as I travel and yes, many many AA employees are aware of it, have heard about it, and are concerned about it. (So are other employees of other carriers who fear that a sick out by ANY other carrier over the holidays will quadruple their work load as their carrier will not doubt greedily attempt to pick up the slack, making some of them wonder if they too should call in sick. I know at least two flight attendants from Delta who will be watching the news closely the sunday after thanksgiving to see if they want to go to work on their afternoon runs 😉 ).
I feel deeply for the fact that this is a subject, both pro and con, that even needs to be discussed at all. It's obvious that there are unhappy parties on both sides of this employer/employee fence. Certainly, AA thinks labor should give more, and Labor thinks they have given enough, and a good sized majority I believe now think they probably gave too much. I would like to see AA survive the uncertain future the industry is facing. They have a long way to go before my stock ownership will no longer represent a loss, and I have already given up any hope of reaping any kind of dividends in the near future. AMR's EPS/earnings per share ratio has jumped astronomically in the past week, having gone from a negative 16 dollars where it has been for nearly two years, up to a negative 10 dollars. . . all in about a week. That is something worth gloating about and each and every employee of American Airlines is responsible for that, including those on furlough or leave.
Surely everyone agrees that prosperity for this airline does not, and should not be reaped in part by mistreating labor, or by failing to compensate labor justly. I doubt that there are many employees at AA who yet feel any sort of job security. Many have gone to work day in and day out knowing that at any time, on any day, their ticket could get punched and they could be unemployed. That's not a good feeling and I feel for the mental anguish that each and every AA employee has gone through in the past two plus years. There is no amount of groveling or empty thanks that the executive level could offer that would make up for what they have put labor through. I realize this because the same people who were at the helm when AA's walls came tumbling down, are still in charge now, with the exception of a meaningless figure head and a couple of equally meaningless VPs who decided to flee to United.
Anyone who refuses to recognize labor's invaluable and majority sacrifice in keeping this airline alive should be horse whipped!
I would hate to see a sick out, even though I am pretty much done traveling for the rest of this year. I know what a sick out of even one day could do to AA's bottom line. But I refuse to sit back and think that the traveling public would not understand - because they would. Remember, the majority of your passengers are the same as you are . . .labor, and in these Bush White House republican destroyed economic times, many of them are in exactly the same boat.
Which ever way it goes, I wish labor luck. If it doesn't happen, then I hope to hell that the executive realizes that labor kept their balls from falling in the fire one more time!
I must however, disagree that WRX is a majority of one, and appears to be the only poster who advocates a "sick out" as a viable deterrent to detrimental treatment by AA as an employer towards it's FA's as employees. I too advocate such an action. I advocate labor standing up for itself and demanding the recognition either by benefit or pay, for the invaluable services they perform for this airline.
While there may be a vocal minority on this board, it doesn't exist across the system. I'm blatantly asking employees that I come in contact with as I travel and yes, many many AA employees are aware of it, have heard about it, and are concerned about it. (So are other employees of other carriers who fear that a sick out by ANY other carrier over the holidays will quadruple their work load as their carrier will not doubt greedily attempt to pick up the slack, making some of them wonder if they too should call in sick. I know at least two flight attendants from Delta who will be watching the news closely the sunday after thanksgiving to see if they want to go to work on their afternoon runs 😉 ).
I feel deeply for the fact that this is a subject, both pro and con, that even needs to be discussed at all. It's obvious that there are unhappy parties on both sides of this employer/employee fence. Certainly, AA thinks labor should give more, and Labor thinks they have given enough, and a good sized majority I believe now think they probably gave too much. I would like to see AA survive the uncertain future the industry is facing. They have a long way to go before my stock ownership will no longer represent a loss, and I have already given up any hope of reaping any kind of dividends in the near future. AMR's EPS/earnings per share ratio has jumped astronomically in the past week, having gone from a negative 16 dollars where it has been for nearly two years, up to a negative 10 dollars. . . all in about a week. That is something worth gloating about and each and every employee of American Airlines is responsible for that, including those on furlough or leave.
Surely everyone agrees that prosperity for this airline does not, and should not be reaped in part by mistreating labor, or by failing to compensate labor justly. I doubt that there are many employees at AA who yet feel any sort of job security. Many have gone to work day in and day out knowing that at any time, on any day, their ticket could get punched and they could be unemployed. That's not a good feeling and I feel for the mental anguish that each and every AA employee has gone through in the past two plus years. There is no amount of groveling or empty thanks that the executive level could offer that would make up for what they have put labor through. I realize this because the same people who were at the helm when AA's walls came tumbling down, are still in charge now, with the exception of a meaningless figure head and a couple of equally meaningless VPs who decided to flee to United.
Anyone who refuses to recognize labor's invaluable and majority sacrifice in keeping this airline alive should be horse whipped!
I would hate to see a sick out, even though I am pretty much done traveling for the rest of this year. I know what a sick out of even one day could do to AA's bottom line. But I refuse to sit back and think that the traveling public would not understand - because they would. Remember, the majority of your passengers are the same as you are . . .labor, and in these Bush White House republican destroyed economic times, many of them are in exactly the same boat.
Which ever way it goes, I wish labor luck. If it doesn't happen, then I hope to hell that the executive realizes that labor kept their balls from falling in the fire one more time!
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