Future work.
During the talks we tried to get the company to committ to whatever the APA flies for AMR we work on, they refused, only saying that we would work on planes that operate under the American Airlines Certificate.
For those who were here under the Crandall days he used to talk of a day where AA did primarily long haul flights, major hub to hub cities and International.
One of the reasons why we on the line feel we should not strike a deal untill the pilots do is what if the company plans to put the A-320s into the Eagle fleet and strikes a deal with the APA to do the flying? They could do the same with the FAs as well. For the Unions they gain members, the Eagle pilots would welcome the deal to be on track to getting that left seat in a 777. The TWU already has both AE and AA so while they may lose members at AA they would gain members at Eagle. But for us, we would not be entitled to the work. Not on the line, not in OH. With the widebodies outsourced we would basically only have a 737 fleet domestically. The language is already in place in the proposal to make DWH any location in DFW. With the pilot shortage increasing, competition from emerging nations and China for US Pilots, the end of the 5 year bump in supply they enjoyed by raising the mandatory retirement age, plummeting rates of licensing and the possiblity of increased regulation of pilot duty times by the FAA, the airlines are going to have to maximize their use of pilots towards revenue generating. Flying 737s to Tulsa may not be considered a good deal no matter how cheaply they get it if they can get a similar deal from DFW. In DFW they can use maintenance to drag a 737 from a revenue trip (that actually makes money) to the hangar for a heavy check. This would not only save fuel and landing fees it would maximize pilot usage towards revenue generating flying.
With the retirements of MD-80s and 757s,the 35% (55%) cap, No system protection, elimination of the CR Smith letter on contracting out and ASM cap on eagle flying, widebodies outsouced to Asia or South America (weren't we always criticizing AMFA for allowing aircraft to be outsourced overseas in exchange for higher pay rates? We are allowing it in exchange for the lowest pay rate!!) we could end up with a drastically reduced PIE from which that 55% number is calculated. We are giving the company the ability to reduce our numbers to less than Southwest. Some will say they can do that if they impose the term sheet as well, true but we could still fight it and they would have to do so within a short amount of time at a time where capacity is tight in the MRO world, wheras if we agree to this we are putting in place the language that would allow them to do it at their leisure over the next six years.
Nothing in this proposal saves jobs, there is the threat of 40% (60%) outsourcing vs 35%(55%) but the threat to jobs by eliminating the ASM language could be more devastating to AA mechanics than the outsourcing language and by eliminating system protection there is nothing in our agreement that would prevent AMR from transferring flying from American Airlines to Eagle. With the other two groups going forward whats to stop them from making a deal to do some of that Eagle flying? Why wouldnt they, after all we would have abandoned them by agreeing to this?
Crandall's dream of a much smaller AA that operates fewer aircraft, mainly on long haul flying, but sells a lot of tickets, may come to fruition. The Tulsa membership is like a herd of Buffalo being lead to the cliff. The lead Buffalo may believe they are leading the herd to safety by not confronting the threat but they are leading them over a cliff. Will they voluntarily jump off the cliff by voting yes, not realizing thats not the safe way until its too late, or vote no and stop, face and fight what they believe is threatening them? Do the Buffalo stand a better chance of fighting people in wolf-skins or that sudden stop at the bottom?
