Schnurman: American Airlines pilots need a reality check

[FrequentFlierCA]

Looks like the board of the APA might agree with Mr. Schnurman's take on pilot strategy. Cap'n Hill got himself a censure. The article wasn't totally clear as to why, but I can guess: totally ineffective negotiating tactics for several years now. I guess it's one thing to be confrontational, but another to be confrontational and not show any results for it.

 

[Mach85ER]

The article wasn't totally clear as to why, but I can guess: totally ineffective negotiating tactics for several years now.

Guess all you want. I'll just consider your track record when you do that. :blink:

 

[FA Mikey]

I wouldn't throw stones Mikey.

The pilot's have one thing in common with ballplayers, and that's the years of experience it takes to be get to top of a career.

Seniority gets you to the top of your career. Once AA or any other carrier puts you in the right seat, you are trained and ready to go. Outside of a simulator there is no practice. You dont get multiple chance at an emergency. You run your check list and do as you were trained. Just like every other employee work group at AA I would listen to the pilots whine about having to go to training.

No offence, but honestly a ball player has to use his skills and scences the entire time he is on the field. There is no autoplayer mode, and no one bring him his meal to second base. The mechanics are the most under paid and appreciated work group on the property. Not pilots, flight attendants rampers or agent's.

I would be more concerned about your career. Your group has more in common with the typical UAW worker in terms of the actual requirements and training to do a certain job. For many UAW workers, that may be a couple of weeks or less.

I fully understand the job of F/A is esentially unskilled labor.

 

[AAStew]

Mike, I am sorry but you are absolutely wrong on most of your comments on these posts! The majority of our pilots put in time flying airplanes for our country, some the full twenty years! This was after they went to college! Then they came to work for us at B scale and for many who have been with AA for 18-20 years, they are just reaching left seat! That is almost 40 years experience and from what I have seen, the majority of Captains on Jet Blue and the like are not as qualified. I know I always feel safer when I am with one of our pilots (or any of the majors but mostly AA). So why begrudge them their salaries? They have put in their time, and more than deserve what we pay them. And honestly 160 to 200K per year really isn't that much. We had the option of choosing our careers, perhaps they did not go for instant gratification? Their experience is monetarily worth much more when it comes to safety than what we are worth!
I am not selling us out, and I am not married or sleeping with a pilot , in fact I don't like many of them (sorry guys), but you have to give credit where it is due.

 

[Bob Owens]

No offence, but honestly a ball player has to use his skills and scences the entire time he is on the field. There is no autoplayer mode, and no one bring him his meal to second base. The mechanics are the most under paid and appreciated work group on the property. Not pilots, flight attendants rampers or agent's.

Thanks for the plug Mike but I dont see how any of the banter back and forth helps any of us.

The fact is pilots went and invested in their careers with certain reasonable expectations, as we all did. The pilots invest more and they get more, but from what I've seen I dont think its a great deal. Thats one reason why I never took it up. Their progressions are very long, they are away from home a lot(like you), its a high risk job(like yours), an illness that would not stop anyone else could end their careers, they only have until 60 to make their money and everything, to a far greater degree than ours, is tied to a single employer.

The pilots are fighting to fulfill their reasonable expectations, they want to live like Airline Pilots typically lived. They, like all of us make sacrifices and they expect compensation to reflect that. They have a lot at stake here and their success wont harm us. If they lose their jobs, due to the way pilots across the industry have structured their contracts, they probably will never see the wages and benifits they expect, but if they dont fight they wont see them either.


I dont begrudge the pilots for taking this to the brink, and over, if need be. In fact I support them in their efforts because enough is enough. We have all suffered while our greedy executives have rewarded themselves with bonuses. I'm sick of managements threats, pay us or shut it down and I'll try it again somewhere else, somewhere where I dont have to put in 20 years before I work normal hours, see a weekend off or spend a holiday at home.

 

[FA Mikey]

I do not totally disagree with your post stew, and I only fly AA. Most of the other carriers either leave me feeling unsafe by their penny pinching ways, their scab labor, or their sorry level of service on the ground and in the air.

Statistically majority of pilots being military I found rates directly with the economy and airline hiring. When the times were good and hiring was through the roof, military made up around 40% of the hiring. When hiring was at a limited number, it rose to the mid 90%. This is going back to when Crandall was here and a friend of mine was looking for a pilot job, AA had limit on how old you could be to get hired here. At the time I believe it was 32 years old to get hired as an AA pilot.

I dont necessarily begrudge there pay. I do loathe insane retirement payout, and the manner in which they will walk over everything and everybody to get the lions share of the pie, and still ask for the most outrageous add ons.

 

[Bob Owens]

I dont necessarily begrudge there pay. I do loathe insane retirement payout, and the manner in which they will walk over everything and everybody to get the lions share of the pie, and still ask for the most outrageous add ons.

Well can you be more specific as to what is outrageous?
With their retirement payout they actually have to work those years, unlike the executives who sometimes get decades worth of credit towards their pensions with only a few years actually worked. We only hear about the max payouts, not what the average is which would be much lower.
As far as them stepping on everyone else what do you base that on? Could it be the company's claim that "because the pilots took so much there's nothing left for you"? If you buy that shame on you. No matter what the pilots take there always seems to be enough for the executives.

Back when the FAs struck I saw quite a few pilots on the picket lines.

 

[AAStew]

In Mikes defense they ask for some of the most selfish things. Such as deadheading only in first class ahead of any other crew member, superbowl sunday a holiday? I am having a senior moment and can't remember the rest, but what pisses F/A's the most is that they are in it for themselves (and I am not talking about money) as far as conveniences to the detriment of others. Not all of the pilots are like this but a good percentage are and they stink it up for the rest....

 

[Mach85ER]

In Mikes defense they ask for some of the most selfish things. Such as deadheading only in first class ahead of any other crew member, superbowl sunday a holiday? I am having a senior moment and can't remember the rest, but what pisses F/A's the most is that they are in it for themselves (and I am not talking about money) as far as conveniences to the detriment of others. Not all of the pilots are like this but a good percentage are and they stink it up for the rest....

More than a couple of US majors, DAL and UAL I'm pretty sure about, already have it in their contracts that if a deadhead is longer than "X" hours, they get Business Class or better seating. Like it or not, Flight Crew and Cabin Crew are two different employee groups. Most of my time at AA has been as FO. It would never cross my mind as an FO that just because a leg with the same CP and FA crew is a deadhead, then suddenly my supervisor (and yours) should be relegated to a random number of 10 Pilots and FA's.

My vote is to let the Captain deal out the seats. It's his crew. I think you'll find that many if not most, in a situation with 2-3 F/C seats available, would give the purser their F/C seat. Somedays I would, somedays I wouldn't. I've done it in the past. Certain others would get the center seat in coach due to their attitude to their fellow FA's and passengers.

Sorry AAStew, I think if a Captain is flying down to EZE with a full crew on a 9 hour night flight to cover a return flight home the next night, I think the Captain and his FO's should get priority on the better seats.

 

[FA Mikey]

So the whole flight you are behind the cockpit door or sleeping and you feel you should be the one to give out the premium seats. Like you said that way you can play favorites to some and punish others for what ever justification you see fit. Why stop there, lets have the captains give out the hotel rooms as well. One of the problems I see with that is you would have to wait and see that each of the crew members actually got a room.

If a captain flew down and was dead heading home he deserves a F/C seat just because he sat in the cockpit had his meal brought to him and had a longer break than all the F/A's and a choice of either a F/C seat or one of the two bunks. Oh wait maybe thats the reason he shouldnt have first dibs.

 

[Mach85ER]

So the whole flight you are behind the cockpit door or sleeping and you feel you should be the one to give out the premium seats.

No, I figure the easy choice as to who to be in charge of it should be the Captain. He is in command of the crew. He is the one that signs the Gen Decs for the crew that's out of the country, not #2, #5 or #3. I figure it's a better system than exists now where the 20% of your group spin themselves up for 8 hours down to GRU, then run to the airport on an early bus to ace out a 30 year Captain. That's what happens when nobody is in charge. It turns into a backbiting free for all typical of AA. As I said, as FO, I would never think of doing that to the CA, and would take 32E instead of trying to ace the CA out of 2A. As I said, let's just do it like UAL or DAL.

"Why stop there, lets have the captains give out the hotel rooms as well."

No request to do that. I think you know about the small minority of FA's who run in and switch the room assignments at certain places (the few places where it matters at that), or go green with envy when the Captain scores a suite with free internet.

Seniority gets you to the top of your career. Once AA or any other carrier puts you in the right seat, you are trained and ready to go. Outside of a simulator there is no practice. You dont get multiple chance at an emergency. You run your check list and do as you were trained. Just like every other employee work group at AA I would listen to the pilots whine about having to go to training.

"Trained and ready to go"? Sure Mikey. Everyone can meet the FAA minimums. That's about it. I can meet the minimum hitting a fastball on a pitching simulator, but put me against a major league pitcher and I'll wiff for years. Same thing goes for a guy meeting the "FAA minimums" in a checkride. I could could him in a sim and make him "wiff" every approach and many emergencies. Ask the FAA if they'd like every AA pilot meeting the "FAA minimums" tomorrow. They'll turn white with fear.


You also "loathe" the retirement payout. Keep in mind that most of the big numbers of the last 5-10 years were based on the bull market since half our payout is kind of a mutual fund. Those numbers will drop in the future. I will ask you this, what is a "fair" payout for a guy who makes 150-200K at an average age of 62? You brought it up Mikey, let's hear it.

 

[jersey777]

I recently deadheaded to EZE from JFK and there were 3 b/c seats available. The agents went strickly by check in time and who was on the upgrade list first. I was luckily able to check in 24 hrs before because I had come in from LHR the night before which made me the first one on the list. The purser and FB also got b/c because they were the next 2 on the list. The captain and the rest of the flight attendant crew got coach seats. There were 3 f/a's in coach who had between 40-50 years. I only have 18 years. There was no infighting. There was no animosity. The check in time works because everyone knows the rules and it levels the playing field.

 

[AAStew]

No, I don't think a Captain flying to EZE and flying back the next day should get a first class seat solely for that reason. He has his FAA and union contracted rest rules that will supply more than ample rest time.
As for the other stupid things pilots ask for, how about when they asked for a higher boarding priority for themselves and their families? I know it doesn't hurt to ask, but what justification is there for this? Maybe the little lady won't say no if she is well rested?

 

[Mach85ER]

He has his FAA and union contracted rest rules that will supply more than ample rest time.
I know it doesn't hurt to ask, but what justification is there for this? Maybe the little lady won't say no if she is well rested?

Both sides here will never agree, you did touch on the direct issue, if APA wants it, negotiate it. Personally, it is one of a list of low cost/no cost items that should have been gained with the 2003 giveback, shoved across the table at then end.

As for the other stupid things pilots ask for, how about when they asked for a higher boarding priority for themselves and their families?

Actually "stupid" is not understanding the reasoning for asking for priority over other corporate offshoots such as French railway programmers. "Stupid" is not realizing that other airline groups would have gotten the same airline priority. Direct Deposit came about because of the 1991 APA contract. You can skip the profuse thanks.
Feel free to regurgitate the same stuff here over and over.

 

[butchord45]

Oh please, give it a rest.....Direct Deposit was inevitable it saves them a ton of money by not having to print paychecks and ship them etc. etc. You negotiated for some thing you were going to get anyway. What did you give up to get direct deposit....OOPS!

Both sides here will never agree, you did touch on the direct issue, if APA wants it, negotiate it. Personally, it is one of a list of low cost/no cost items that should have been gained with the 2003 giveback, shoved across the table at then end.




Actually "stupid" is not understanding the reasoning for asking for priority over other corporate offshoots such as French railway programmers. "Stupid" is not realizing that other airline groups would have gotten the same airline priority. Direct Deposit came about because of the 1991 APA contract. You can skip the profuse thanks.
Feel free to regurgitate the same stuff here over and over.