I just got back from a ORD-PVG round trip that saw MAJOR delays. It also saw multiple FAs visibly pissed when asked about AA.
I say SCREW AA management.....I feel awful for all the employees, and I'm by no means pro-labor as you can see from my other posts, but as an owner of a business with many employees, I just can't help but feel bad for how employees have been treated. Non of my management team members get bonus without our lowest part-time employee. EVERYONE gets a bonus, or no one does, and senior managers don't get 100% bonuses while secretaries get 5% ones I can tell you that much.
AA management should have forgone bonuses till all givebacks were restored to AA employees.
I'm considering leaving AA as an EXP as my conscious after my last trip last week is knawing at me. So if any employee is sending a msg to AA management, I say good for them.
Cheers,
777 / 767 / 757
Theres a reason why its called Arrogant Airlines. When questioned abou the lack of equality as far as sacrifice one senior AA official responded "Shared sacrifice doesnt mean equal sacrifice". "Let them eat cake"??
AA is done, no service company can survive when it has such bad relations with the people who actually provide the service. They will be fine as long as load factors remain high across the industry because consumers arent left with many options when the planes are all full, but that will pass and when it does AA is done.
Everybody is blaming the pilots, claiming that by reporting defects they are having a job action, well isnt a pilot legally required to report defects as he becomes aware of them? The WSJ accused pilots of grounding airplanes, pilots dont ground airplanes, if the book is signed off then they are ready to go-maintenance grounds airplanes, and three out of four line mechanics voted against the deal thats been imposed on them. The mechanics have more of a reason to be pissed than the pilots, they are at the bottom of the industry and will be there for at least six more years. The gap between AA mechanics pay and the average for the industry is huge, its like they are in a different industry or classification, thats why from my point of view as a mechanic the profession would be better off to see AA liquidate before other carriers use AA's contract as leverage to win concessions from their mechanics. With the high load factors we see across the industry, if AA does liquidate other carriers would rapidly expand and probably pick up most of AA's mechanics and pilots. So when a pilot does his job as directed by the company and the FAA and reports a defect when he becomes aware of it do you think the mechanic is going to give any extra effort at resolving the problem?
The company has gone to great legnths to alienate both the pilots and mechanics and it shows in their performance. If you have pilots that no longer sit on defects till termination at a Maint station and mechanics that are not focused on fixing the problem you are not going to have good performasnce. Much of what AA was able to take from mechanics was driven purely from spite, meant to degrade and humiliate them, and then they wonder why their planes dont leave on time. Mechanics at AA are not only the lowest paid in the industry they pay more for their medical out of pocket than any other mechanics, they have fewer paid Holidays and the few they have they only get half pay if they are required to work, they have half the sick time, less IOD time (another reason to take your time and work safe), no flexible vacation time like everyone else, and less vacation time than pretty much anybody (the first five years they only get one week) and on top of all that, in return for putting us so far into the bottom its as if we are in a different profession, they stuck in a letter where the Union has to committ to make AA number one.
Like I said three out of four mechanics that work the line voted against this deal, over 96% in the Northeast, do you think that when the pilots find a defect the mechanics are really all that motivated at getting that plane out on time? Why should they? The longer it takes for them to fix it the more opportunity they have to work OT and make up for the concessions that were just rammed down their throats. With such limited IOD time why take shortcuts?
