Kudwa stepping down

[AAmech]

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On 7/9/2003 4:58:34 PM michael707767 wrote:

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On 7/9/2003 411 PM BDLDFW wrote:


Everyone loves to compare to the LCCs but the airline workers at the legacy carriers don''t want the pay scales or work rules of the LCCs.  You can''t have the success of the LCCs without paying the price. ​

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want to bet. Have you compared wages at AA, UAL, USA to those at SW, or even Airtran lately? SW pilots are on track to be the highest paid in the industry. Same with SW mechanics. JetBlue captains make about 130k per year, not much less than an AA or USAir captain for similar equipment. Employee costs at the majors that have taken hits are getting close to the costs of the big three LCCs. But are those majors making money?


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Sure I''ll bet!! I think you''ll find all of the above mentioned LCC''s have MUCH more productive work rules. Far fewer employees per aircraft =''s big savings. How many Mechanics does JB have now? Last I saw it was around 50! Not to mention their benifits are usually less especially in the retirement area. None of the above mentioned LCC''s offer a Defined Benifit Pension Plan. They toss all their employees in the far cheaper 401k''s. Simply put an LCC employee may make the same cash pay but they will work harder to get it.

 

[AAmech]

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On 7/9/2003 3:30:21 PM michael707767 wrote:


Ok, I ask you, if management is not to blame, then who is? There are airlines that are still making money. The managers of the majors have made some very bad decisions which led to this crisis. Some if it is related to 9/11, no doubt. But more of it is related to failing to recognize you can''t screw business travelors forever, failing to see that the distribution of your tickets on the internet would destroy your pricing power, failing to see that you don''t spend billions buying back stock, failing to control spending during the boom times when you know the bad times are always around the corner in this industry, failing to recognize that the low cost carriers are indeed a threat, jumping in too soon with very low fares to bring pax back post 9/11, spending millions and millions of dollars either pursuing a bad merger(USAir/UAL) or actually consumating a bad merger (AA/TWA).

Sorry, but the current crop of leaders is stuck in the past. Airline travel has changed forever, it started happening 10 years ago. The management of the majors never adapted while the managers of the LCCs did adapt. I have no faith that the leadership of any of the majors is capable of thinking outside the box and making some real changes. Yes, responsibility for this rests solely on the shoulders of the management of these airlines.

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Trying to minimize the impact of 9/11 is just silly! Prior to that terrible day AA looked NOTHING like it does today. The managment you pin all the blame on had a VERY conservative growth plan during the boom years and planned everything around the coming "down cycle". Yes AA had some losing quarters and the solution was to go to zero growth, hiring freezes and accelerate 727 retirements. Theres no big managment secrets at the LCC''s. It usually involves lower pay, less benifits, outsource everything and anything, and have you employees work much more than the Majors. If you impose the pay, benifits, workrules and scope clauses of Airtran, JB, WN or Frontier on AA we''d be making money hand over fist. Heck just with the concessions we took AA has already gone "cash positive".

 

[BDLDFW]

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On 7/9/2003 4:58:34 PM michael707767 wrote:

SW pilots are on track to be the highest paid in the industry. Same with SW mechanics. JetBlue captains make about 130k per year, not much less than an AA or USAir captain for similar equipment.

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You can bet the LCCs work rules are much different from the legacy carriers. That figures significantly into the labor cost equation.

 

[Bob Owens]

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On 7/10/2003 8:15:19 AM AAmech wrote:




The managment you pin all the blame on had a VERY conservative growth plan during the boom years and planned everything around the coming "down cycle".

Sure like buying back Billions worth of stock, buying TWA, ripping down newly renovated terminals to replace them with new billion dollar terminals, putting their names on sports arenas, ect.


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[FWAAA]

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On 7/10/2003 8:29:42 AM Bob Owens wrote:

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On 7/10/2003 8:15:19 AM AAmech wrote:




The managment you pin all the blame on had a VERY conservative growth plan during the boom years and planned everything around the coming "down cycle".

Sure like buying back Billions worth of stock, buying TWA, ripping down newly renovated terminals to replace them  with  new billion dollar terminals, putting their names on sports arenas,  ect.


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Yes, and in addition, like spending $8 billion each year on employee wages (more than WN''s total revenues), spending billions more throughout the ''90s on PROFIT sharing, giving into nearly every union demand over the years to avoid a strike, etc.

On Wages, let me elaborate: AA spends over 50% more than WN on wages (per dollar of revenue). But that''s all management''s fault too, isn''t it?

 

[WingNaPrayer]

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On 7/10/2003 934 AM FWAAA wrote:

On Wages, let me elaborate: AA spends over 50% more than WN on wages (per dollar of revenue) But that's all management's fault too, isn't it

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Lets see here . . . since you lack a viable comparison, perhaps I can give you just a hint of light to see with . . .

Southwest has 350 aircraft. AA/Eagle has 1,070
Southwest flys only in North America, AA is global
Southwest has 33,705 Employees, AA/Eagle has 109,060 more than three times as many
Southwest flys one type of aircraft, AA/Eagle flys 14
Southwest carries about 2% of the cargo AA has an extensive cargo system

Of COURSE AA spends more on wages. If you want to play the comparison game, you need to pick an airline that's closer in size and system as AA. Oh wait, the only other airline that comes close is in bankruptcy . . . sorry, my bad!

 

[BDLDFW]

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On 7/10/2003 10:03:44 AM MCI transplant wrote:


I''ll tell you one thing! A WN AMT, is making a whole lot more than I am!!!

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And they''re most likely working tougher work rules.

 

[MCI transplant]

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On 7/10/2003 934 AM FWAAA wrote:

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On 7/10/2003 8:29:42 AM Bob Owens wrote:

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On 7/10/2003 8:15:19 AM AAmech wrote:




The managment you pin all the blame on had a VERY conservative growth plan during the boom years and planned everything around the coming "down cycle".

Sure like buying back Billions worth of stock, buying TWA, ripping down newly renovated terminals to replace them  with  new billion dollar terminals, putting their names on sports arenas,  ect.


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​

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Yes, and in addition, like spending $8 billion each year on employee wages (more than WN''s total revenues), spending billions more throughout the ''90s on PROFIT sharing, giving into nearly every union demand over the years to avoid a strike, etc.

On Wages, let me elaborate: AA spends over 50% more than WN on wages (per dollar of revenue). But that''s all management''s fault too, isn''t it?

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Would you like to break that 50% down for us! What percentage of that is Management compensation, how much is Contract,etc.? How many V.P''s does WN have? How many do we have? That 50% really doesn''t tell the whole story now does it? I''ll tell you one thing! A WN AMT, is making a whole lot more than I am!!!

 

[buzzkill]

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On 7/10/2003 10:03:44 AM MCI transplant wrote:

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On 7/10/2003 934 AM FWAAA wrote:

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On 7/10/2003 8:29:42 AM Bob Owens wrote:

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On 7/10/2003 8:15:19 AM AAmech wrote:




The managment you pin all the blame on had a VERY conservative growth plan during the boom years and planned everything around the coming "down cycle".

Sure like buying back Billions worth of stock, buying TWA, ripping down newly renovated terminals to replace them  with  new billion dollar terminals, putting their names on sports arenas,  ect.


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​

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Yes, and in addition, like spending $8 billion each year on employee wages (more than WN''s total revenues), spending billions more throughout the ''90s on PROFIT sharing, giving into nearly every union demand over the years to avoid a strike, etc.

On Wages, let me elaborate: AA spends over 50% more than WN on wages (per dollar of revenue). But that''s all management''s fault too, isn''t it?

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Would you like to break that 50% down for us! What percentage of that is Management compensation, how much is Contract,etc.? How many V.P''s does WN have? How many do we have? That 50% really doesn''t tell the whole story now does it? I''ll tell you one thing! A WN AMT, is making a whole lot more than I am!!!


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I think there are about 9,000 management employees. If you figure that compensation for all but the top people averages $70,000 (probably too high, since the vast majority of these people are L1 and L2 whose salaries top out at around $40,000 or so), then you have 8,500 x 70,000 = $595M. If you take the remaining 500, and assume they average $1M/year (way too high, but what the heck), then you add another $500M to the $595M and you get about $1.1B. The remainder would be union and agent compensation.

So to answer your questions, it looks like management makes up about 14% of compensation, with about 10% of the total employees. I think there are around 40 Officers, and 10 - 15 senior officers (I don''t have the numbers here, but this is very close).

I''m only estimating with these numbers, but it is close enough for this discussion. I don''t have any clue how many VP''s WN has.

MCItransplant - you wanted the whole story. I have done a decent job of answering your questions. Now how about the whole story on WN mechanics? Would you be willing to trade your job with a WN AMT? What about all the outsourcing WN does? Are there workrule differences? Just curious.

 

[LaBradford22]

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On 7/10/2003 10:44:37 AM buzzkill wrote:

I think there are about 9,000 management employees. If you figure that compensation for all but the top people averages $70,000 (probably too high, since the vast majority of these people are L1 and L2 whose salaries top out at around $40,000 or so), then you have 8,500 x 70,000 = $595M. If you take the remaining 500, and assume they average $1M/year (way too high, but what the heck), then you add another $500M to the $595M and you get about $1.1B. The remainder would be union and agent compensation.

So to answer your questions, it looks like management makes up about 14% of compensation, with about 10% of the total employees. I think there are around 40 Officers, and 10 - 15 senior officers (I don''t have the numbers here, but this is very close).

I''m only estimating with these numbers, but it is close enough for this discussion. I don''t have any clue how many VP''s WN has.

MCItransplant - you wanted the whole story. I have done a decent job of answering your questions. Now how about the whole story on WN mechanics? Would you be willing to trade your job with a WN AMT? What about all the outsourcing WN does? Are there workrule differences? Just curious.

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For one thing, WN does no heavy maintenance - it''s all contracted out.

 

[AirLUVer]

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On 7/10/2003 1247 PM WingNaPrayer wrote:

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On 7/10/2003 10:44:37 AM buzzkill wrote:

I don''t have any clue how many VP''s WN has.

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Southwest has 26 Publicly disclosed VPs and Senior VPs.

AMR has 13 Senior VPs and 29 VPs of various divisions

Remember, AMR is global, not all VPs are based in the USA.

AMR has 10,191 management level employees.

For a complete breakdown of AAs employee classifications and numbers, click the following link - it is current as of March, 2003:​

 

[buzzkill]

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On 7/10/2003 12:46:23 PM AirLUVer wrote:

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On 7/10/2003 1247 PM WingNaPrayer wrote:

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On 7/10/2003 10:44:37 AM buzzkill wrote:

 I don''t have any clue how many VP''s WN has.

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Southwest has 26 Publicly disclosed VPs and Senior VPs.

AMR has 13 Senior VPs and 29 VPs of various divisions 

Remember, AMR is global, not all VPs are based in the USA.

AMR has 10,191 management level employees.

For a complete breakdown of AAs employee classifications and numbers, click the following link - it is current as of March, 2003:

http://www.amrcorp.com/facts/employee.htm



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Sorry WNP your link says as of March, 2002

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Management is closer to 9,000 now.

 

[WingNaPrayer]

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On 7/10/2003 10:44:37 AM buzzkill wrote:

I don't have any clue how many VP's WN has.

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Southwest has 26 Publicly disclosed VPs and Senior VPs.

AMR has 13 Senior VPs and 29 VPs of various divisions

Remember, AMR is global, not all VPs are based in the USA.

AMR has 10,191 management level employees.

For a complete breakdown of AAs employee classifications and numbers, click the following link - it is current as of March, 2003:

[url="http://www.amrcorp.com/facts/employee.htm"]http://www.amrcorp.com/facts/employee.htm[/URL]

 

[MCI transplant]

Buzzkill---- Thanks for the breackdown! One question? Are those figures based on pre-concessionary wages, or are they currant figures? As to if I would trade my job! Can you arrange it? How soon can I go? Would yesterday be too soon? One thing this job do''es not have is "Stability"! I haven''t known from one moment to the next, if I have a job! For the last 15 years it''s been this way, and with A.A. it''s even worse! Would I trade? In a heart beat!!! And what A.A. "should be" concerned about,is that 99% of the workers I have worked with would also!

 

[WingNaPrayer]

Read it again Buzz, and ignore the revision dates, webmasters ALWAYS forget to change those.

The employment info clearly states:
Employees by Job Category (As of March 28, 2003)

AND







AMR Locations With 200 or More Employees


As of March 28, 2003