So who's non rev. policy will survive?

[Crash Pad DCA]

15 pages about non rev policy. Seems to me we have much more important issues regarding this deal. Just sayin`, carry on...

ROTFLMAO!
I'll hit the delete button more often in future posts on this issue :blush:

 

[Crash Pad DCA]

It's the same thing all over again. When HP and US were deciding on a travel policy, the company did a survey. I still remember a sob story about the years of walk-arounds he had to do and he was entitled to his seniority based boarding. I thought of the mechanics and rampers who stood out in the cold a lot longer than this guy. I've been doing walk-arounds since 1978 and that does not give me the right to jump over some poor soul who's been waiting all day for a seat.

We've dealt with this entitlement attitude since 2005. The company will probably go with the majority on travel policy and between AA and former HP you'll have the numbers as long as you participate in the process.

You seem to feel as entitled to FCFS as much as others feel entitled to Seniority.
To tell you the truth, I don't really care. Whatever little system this new thing called US/AA comes up with, I'm going to make my flights. And at the gate, I'm going to do my best to make sure as many non-revs get on the flight as possible...whether you are an entitled (and now vidicated!) FCFS customer or an entitled (sore winner) Seniority customer....lol

 

[hp-csr-phx]

I really don't think conx (or thru as AA calls them) should have priority over local pax. Very unfair if you live in a hub.

 

[snapthis]

You seem to feel as entitled to FCFS as much as others feel entitled to Seniority.
To tell you the truth, I don't really care. Whatever little system this new thing called US/AA comes up with, I'm going to make my flights. And at the gate, I'm going to do my best to make sure as many non-revs get on the flight as possible...whether you are an entitled (and now vidicated!) FCFS customer or an entitled (sore winner) Seniority customer....lol

I have no trouble traveling DOH, I feel FCFS is fairer. My wife is a frequent flyer with AA and we usually travel on her miles anyway. I discourage use of my passes because of hight loads and if they use my passes I make sure they know the rules.

I can live with either policy but prefer FCFS.

 

[ChrisUS]

Some (maybe a whole bunch!) of US at US really like Seniority and it seems to be working for US everyday with no problems. I've yet to see a non-rev throw him/herself off the jet bridge in protest of the inherent unfairness of Seniority over FCFS.

I don't have a great hire date, but I don't miss flights, and I have no problem if you get to go ahead of me after a half-century of service to er...Mowhawk/Empire/Allegheny/Piedmont/PSA/USAir/TrumpShuttle/HP/US/AA..well you get the picture. Clearly a lot of people at both airlines have been through a lot...

I have seen PLENTY of people with 2011 and even 2012 dates listed on top of the check-in list for flights. In fact, today's PHL-CDG only has SA4s (retireess) and SA7s (buddy passes) listed and a whopping 122 seats open in coach. On today's two (2) flights from PHX-HNL the only hire dates are 199x, 200x, 200x and 201x (14 seats open on first flight/9 non-revs. No problem). And today's PHL-LHR has exactly one active employee, one retiree, six buddy passes listed and 97 seats open in coach. EVERYONE is going to make the flight! (Unless someone puts a tweet out to the posse of last minute listing, show up 15 minutes before departure, US employees/retirees wth 1946 hire dates!) With appropriate planning, seems like everybody's crazy little day trip can be comfortably be accomdated with Seniority, too.

The vast majority of US here at US are doing our best everyday to "leave no non-rev behind". I hope that this kind of comraderie carries over to the new US/AA. If you come up to me 'cause you're concerned you don't have a great seniority date and it looks like you're not going to make the flight, then I'm going to proactively work with you and rebook you on something that is OPEN so you get to where you need to go. Happened just ths past Sunday. DCA-PHX-LAS wasn't gonna happen for a couple retirees (SA4), but DCA-CLT-LAS was wide open all day. Problem solved...FCFS be damned! Sorry, but Seniority is just not killing us over here at US...

What's "fair" is completely arbitrary and depends on the company's subjective goals for "non-revenue" travel. If the corporation decides that non-rev travel (hopefully for the new US/AA it will TRULY be non-revenue and not AA's "pay to play") is a perk that goes by Seniority, like bid lines and vacations, then so be it. On the other hand if the company decides that employee travel is something that should be subject to the technological vagaries of FCFS then fine, too.

Both FCFS and Seniority have advantages and disadvantages. Both systems can be "gamed". And somebody is not going to be happy no matter what comes down the pike.

And if you think non-rev travel is worthless, not worth the hassle, and that we should never use the perk and instead should focus on buying revenue tickets - on other airlines (I'm paraphrasing some previous commentaries) that's fine, too. Personally, I like the benefit and I think every employee should use it.

Unfortunately, commuting has become a fact of life for MANY pilots, gate agents, rampers,
FAs, mechanics, club reps...you name it! We know THOUSANDS of jobs have been lost in LAS, PIT, LGA, etc. It even appears that for the last nine months or so US has been dumping jobs at FLL and PBI just in ANTICIPATION of the merger. Summarily stating that someone in the airline busiess should just "find another job" instead of "choosing to commute" seems to be a bit heartless and inhumane. The old folks used to say, "There but for the Grace of God go I..." Probably an appropriate aphorism today...

Final story. Last month had a great trip from Europe to PHL on US in Envoy! Great service from a set of wonderful (yes senior) people! One of the wonderful FAs has been in the business since Empire/Mohawk/Allegheny days. God Bless her soul! (Wait! Before you even go there, why should SHE have to retire just because YOU think she is too old? Leave it alone....) Anyway, she still has to commute from middle of PA to PHL to work to hold her line. She usually comes through PHL or DCA to get the job done. Preferably through PHL since it's a one leg commute. We say our farewells at the end of the flight.

Low and behold later she shows up at the gate an hour before departure (not 15 minutes!) for PHL-DCA. "What happend to PHL-(no place PA)?", I ask her. "Booked up," she says with sigh. She'll just have to double leg commute through DCA. Bummer, right? I guess with FCFS my crazy day trip response would be, "Too bad biotch! I checked in first! Go to the end of the line! Oh, and by the way, thanks for the wonderful service on my crazy day trip...Good luck gettin' home!" That would be utterly and completely heartless, no? (Not to mention crass)

But with Seniority (and a modicum of compasion and respect) maybe I would say, "Hey. I'm sorry about that. Hmm...looking at the Seniority list, even though this flight is tight (and as result of your Seniority you're gonna bump me off..but you were working, right? and i wuz..oh yeah day trippin'!), you're gonna make it. I'm sorry you have to do the double commute. It was great meeting you. And thanks for the great service in Envoy! See you later. I'm going to head over to PHL-BWI since that flight is open and I'm only a short train ride from the airport." No family fortune lost, blood spilled, or loss of life due to lack of FCFS, right?

FCFS or Seniority? Who knows what's coming down the pike. In either case I hope we all work to show some respect and compassion to all our fellow US/AA employees...commuter or not, and that AAll of US all adopt a "leave no non-rev behind" mindset when trying to accomodate (hopefully truly) NON-REVENUE employee and guest pass travel.

God Bless US AAll! And God Bless the US/AA!

VERY WELL STATED! Unfortunately some posts are getting rather nasty and that's sad. I hope we can all work together and make this the truly AMAZING airline it can be. Once we merge, who cares where we came from? Like Ben Franklin said, we must hang together or we will hang separately. It will be what it will be and we will adjust.

 

[Show me the money]

The travel policy at AA works for everyone and is one of the things here that actually works. But you can here the groans of the UNION SLUGGS from US. Get out of the 50s and join us in the present. You can spin it any way you want FCFS works better all away around and is easier on the agents and is fair. Thats right a UNION SLUGG wants nothing to do with fair

 

[amt66]

The travel policy at AA works for everyone and is one of the things here that actually works. But you can here the groans of the UNION SLUGGS from US. Get out of the 50s and join us in the present. You can spin it any way you want FCFS works better all away around and is easier on the agents and is fair. Thats right a UNION SLUGG wants nothing to do with fair

Well said and I agree 100%.

 

[eolesen]

I really don't think conx (or thru as AA calls them) should have priority over local pax. Very unfair if you live in a hub.

You're right -- it's entirely unfair that living in a hub, where you have nonstop travel options to a hundred or so destinations, that you might have less priority over someone who had no choice but to connect there because the only nonstops *they* have are to the hubs....

That's sarcasm, by the way, if it wasn't obvious.

 

[Mach85ER]

You're right -- it's entirely unfair that living in a hub, where you have nonstop travel options to a hundred or so destinations, that you might have less priority over someone who had no choice but to connect there because the only nonstops *they* have are to the hubs....

That's sarcasm, by the way, if it wasn't obvious.

Also, just overlook the long list of early/late flights that do not have any connecting traffic that are the easiest flights non-rev flights in the system.

 

[snapthis]

The travel policy at AA works for everyone and is one of the things here that actually works. But you can here the groans of the UNION SLUGGS from US. Get out of the 50s and join us in the present. You can spin it any way you want FCFS works better all away around and is easier on the agents and is fair. Thats right a UNION SLUGG wants nothing to do with fair

Unions work as long as they unify workers for the common goal of having a voice known as a collective bargaining agent. When a union is used as a hammer against it's membership then it is no longer a union, it's an association. The root word being union which implies there is unity.

I agree there are SLUGGS. I'm a member of an association of SLUGGS. Not by choice, by necessity in order to keep my job. I, along with a majority of the America West pilot group refused to pay dues to this association which was found guilty in it's duty to fairly represent ALL of it's members. We received letters and were threatened with termination for not paying extortion to SLUGGS.

When you form an association simply to evade an arbitrator's ruling, it stains unionism in general. With this merger, hopefully the stain will go away, the stink will always be there.

The ruling by the arbitrator put more than 500 former US Airways pilots on top of the seniority list before integrating America West pilots into the list. The list ends with the bottom America West pilot actively flying at the time of the merger above pilots who were furloughed at the time of the merger and pending liquidation of US Air.

This is a direct quote from the arbitrator's decision, George Nicolau who addressed career expectations:

The Background
"As in many other mergers, the airlines differ in size, with US
Airways substantially larger than America West. The former, a product
of previous mergers over the course of a number of years, is also much
older, which consequently reflects a wide disparity in pilot dates of hire
as between the two airlines. Additionally, US Airways has a substantial
4
international presence in which planes not in America West's fleet are
flown. However, in most categories, America West's pay scales are
higher. Beyond this, at the time of the merger announcement, US
Airways had a significant number of pilots on furlough while America
West had none. Moreover, the financial future of US Airways was not
comparable to or as bright as that of America West.
These factors, as could be predicted, led to great differences In
the Parties' concepts of a fair and equitable merger. In basic outline,
US Airways argued for a Date of Hire list, adjusted for Length of
Service, subject to certain seven-year conditions and restrictions, a
model that placed the most senior America West pilot far down the
seniority list and merged a number of furloughed US Airways pilots
above active pilots at America West. In contrast, America West, relying
heavily on its view of the pre-merger financial picture at US Airways,
urged a series of ratios that gave little weight to the longer service of
pilots at US Air. Despite indications by the Board that both approaches
created difficulties if the goal was a fair and equitable integration,
those positions were not fundamentally changed"

Bottom line, the decision was fair, both parties agreed to the process and this decision will be defended in court.

 

[Show me the money]

Unions work as long as they unify workers for the common goal of having a voice known as a collective bargaining agent. When a union is used as a hammer against it's membership then it is no longer a union, it's an association. The root word being union which implies there is unity.

I agree there are SLUGGS. I'm a member of an association of SLUGGS. Not by choice, by necessity in order to keep my job. I, along with a majority of the America West pilot group refused to pay dues to this association which was found guilty in it's duty to fairly represent ALL of it's members. We received letters and were threatened with termination for not paying extortion to SLUGGS.

When you form an association simply to evade an arbitrator's ruling, it stains unionism in general. With this merger, hopefully the stain will go away, the stink will always be there.

The ruling by the arbitrator put more than 500 former US Airways pilots on top of the seniority list before integrating America West pilots into the list. The list ends with the bottom America West pilot actively flying at the time of the merger above pilots who were furloughed at the time of the merger and pending liquidation of US Air.

This is a direct quote from the arbitrator's decision, George Nicolau who addressed career expectations:

The Background
"As in many other mergers, the airlines differ in size, with US
Airways substantially larger than America West. The former, a product
of previous mergers over the course of a number of years, is also much
older, which consequently reflects a wide disparity in pilot dates of hire
as between the two airlines. Additionally, US Airways has a substantial
4
international presence in which planes not in America West's fleet are
flown. However, in most categories, America West's pay scales are
higher. Beyond this, at the time of the merger announcement, US
Airways had a significant number of pilots on furlough while America
West had none. Moreover, the financial future of US Airways was not
comparable to or as bright as that of America West.
These factors, as could be predicted, led to great differences In
the Parties' concepts of a fair and equitable merger. In basic outline,
US Airways argued for a Date of Hire list, adjusted for Length of
Service, subject to certain seven-year conditions and restrictions, a
model that placed the most senior America West pilot far down the
seniority list and merged a number of furloughed US Airways pilots
above active pilots at America West. In contrast, America West, relying
heavily on its view of the pre-merger financial picture at US Airways,
urged a series of ratios that gave little weight to the longer service of
pilots at US Air. Despite indications by the Board that both approaches
created difficulties if the goal was a fair and equitable integration,
those positions were not fundamentally changed"

Bottom line, the decision was fair, both parties agreed to the process and this decision will be defended in court.

Spin, Spin ,Spin join us in the present for a system that works and is fair. Or have you so fallen under the union spell where the biggest word in you vocabulary is seniority.

 

[Crash Pad DCA]

The travel policy at AA works for everyone and is one of the things here that actually works. But you can here the groans of the UNION SLUGGS from US. Get out of the 50s and join us in the present. You can spin it any way you want FCFS works better all away around and is easier on the agents and is fair. Thats right a UNION SLUGG wants nothing to do with fair

Wow! Leading with an attack on "Union SLUGGS from US" to justify FCFS. Can't wait to see how you treat your new colleagues from US on other matters. I guess this marriage my not go so smoothly.

FCFS works at AA and DOH (Date of Hire) works at US.
Some of US like DOH and AA lot of you like FCFS. So be it.

Oh, and a lotta other things here at US have been working, too. And I hope that DP and company are able to right the ship at AA and help AA get it together (without killing all the jobs and employee pay Tommy proposed). I doubt ole Tommy and his AA minions would have worked so quickly to help US/AA people to get together a "fair" interim non-rev agreement. I'm actually proud of DP and company for pushing to get this through so quickly.

And how is FCFS "easier on the agents"? Really? All the agent has to do is clear the passengers in the order given on the computer screen. FCFS and DOH agents do the EXACT same thing...clear the list based on the order given by the computer. So, no..that's just flat wrong.

Would love to see what metric you are using to conclude "FCFS works better all away around". Seems to me that is opinion not based on any facts at all. So be it. You're "entitled" to your union bashing opinion...You can't say Obama has stripped you of that right...yet.

Let's see...1950's right...well as of 2012 (IIRC)
DL is....non-union and...DOH!
UA is....DOH!
US is....DOH!
AA is....well, broke and FCFS...which is, as you said, the only thing that works at AA.

Can't wait to see what other excellent things from AA we adopt. The hate, anger, nastiness and rage displayed in postings on this topic is something I hope we can AAvoid...

God Bless US AAll and God Bless the US/AA!

 

[Crash Pad DCA]

Unions work as long as they unify workers for the common goal of having a voice known as a collective bargaining agent. When a union is used as a hammer against it's membership then it is no longer a union, it's an association. The root word being union which implies there is unity.

I agree there are SLUGGS. I'm a member of an association of SLUGGS. Not by choice, by necessity in order to keep my job. I, along with a majority of the America West pilot group ...

Uh...I think there is a pilot forum for this...We here in this topic are focused on fightin' over non-rev benefits... 16 pages and countin'....

 

[amt66]

Hopefully they will let us vote on which system we prefer and that way the majority is happy. I've never worked for an airline that used DOH bit if it comes to that so be it just a matter of adjusting. Myself I will vote fcfs as I find it to be the fairest of both systems.

 

[jason77]

Wow! Leading with an attack on "Union SLUGGS from US" to justify FCFS. Can't wait to see how you treat your new colleagues from US on other matters. I guess this marriage my not go so smoothly.
You left out Southwest.

FCFS works at AA and DOH (Date of Hire) works at US.
Some of US like DOH and AA lot of you like FCFS. So be it.

Oh, and a lotta other things here at US have been working, too. And I hope that DP and company are able to right the ship at AA and help AA get it together (without killing all the jobs and employee pay Tommy proposed). I doubt ole Tommy and his AA minions would have worked so quickly to help US/AA people to get together a "fair" interim non-rev agreement. I'm actually proud of DP and company for pushing to get this through so quickly.

And how is FCFS "easier on the agents"? Really? All the agent has to do is clear the passengers in the order given on the computer screen. FCFS and DOH agents do the EXACT same thing...clear the list based on the order given by the computer. So, no..that's just flat wrong.

Would love to see what metric you are using to conclude "FCFS works better all away around". Seems to me that is opinion not based on any facts at all. So be it. You're "entitled" to your union bashing opinion...You can't say Obama has stripped you of that right...yet.

Let's see...1950's right...well as of 2012 (IIRC)
DL is....non-union and...DOH!
UA is....DOH!
US is....DOH!
AA is....well, broke and FCFS...which is, as you said, the only thing that works at AA.

Can't wait to see what other excellent things from AA we adopt. The hate, anger, nastiness and rage displayed in postings on this topic is something I hope we can AAvoid...

God Bless US AAll and God Bless the US/AA!