After AA's bankruptcy scare, voila, VP Flight reveals "offer"

[cpamomfromtexas]

Source: emails to Pilots

October 4, 2011

Fellow pilots,

The activity on the stock market yesterday was surprising and drew quite a bit of attention. However, stock volatility isnt a defining point and we continue to press forward because in spite of the unpredictable economic situation, we still have an airline to run and pilots careers to consider.

Specifically, if every crew position is not manned on a flight, it simply cannot be flown and the inevitable consequence is that the pay hours are lost to the other crewmembers on the trip and the revenue is lost to the entire airline. You can assess for yourself the financial impact of a lost sequence, and I can assure you that in todays competitive airline industry, the revenue loss to us all as an airline is equally significant.

.......

Plain and simple, this proposal mitigates the financial impact on pilots before the manning shortfall inevitably takes a toll on every bid status. As importantly, it minimizes the disruption not only in our airlines revenue, but also for our all-important customers who in the end, must be taken care of both today and going forward dependably and without interruption.

I wont mince words or engage in pointless or endless debate on how we came to this point. Because you already know that at Decision Altitude, everything that happened enroute is secondary to what you can and must do once you are there. Plainly, we are there on retirements, and I believe the best, smartest and most effective course is the one laid out above.

Because beyond all the rhetoric is one inescapable fact: as pilots, flying is our financial lifeblood. This proposal not only preserves our income, it presents viable options for every pilot to decide individually how to reasonably and realistically ensure their familys short-term and long-term security.

This proposal is a bridge to, not a substitute for, the Section 6 agreement weve all been working toward both constructively and with substantial success. Weve all invested too much to simply allow a manning shortage to erase all of our progress.

Lets bridge this gap and get this done.

CA John Hale
Vice President Flight & Chief Pilot






No link yet.

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Comments: After 5 1/2 years of "negotiations" and being thwarted at every turn for months by VP Operations aka "Barbeque Bob" Reding who earned that title after several on-board fires due to deferred maintenance at every turn, a phantom "offer" to save the company has been sent directly to pilots at American Airlines, from none other than VP of Flight, John Hale.

American Airlines top management is now spooked since the world has now seen proof that management "lost control" of the bankruptcy talk (you know, the talk that they thought should scare the unions into taking-- yet again, more cuts), they have gone direct to the pilots to reveal their substandard and insincere "offer". Perhaps they thought no one would notice that they have made no attempt to reign in spending on Taj-Mahal terminal makeovers and the several thousand person management ranks(last time I looked over 8,000--how is that even possible?). In essence, the Vice-President of Flight changed "status-quo" under the Railway Labor act (that is if it were even possible to find an impartial mediator at the NMB or a judge anywhere in the country that would actually enforce the RLA and release the pilots to self-help) and attempted to negotiate directly with pilots in an email blast.

Mysteriously ABSENT from this "offer" were hourly wage increases or overtime (bear in mind, that pilots lost a minimum of 23% in 2003, but an average of around 50% for the duration, with no snapbacks, opportunity for advancement, or real raises (beyond a token 1 or 2%), since that time. Also bear in mind that AA pilots make approximately 50% less than Southwest and Delta Airline Pilots, and approximately half of Fed Ex and UPS Pilots (as a frame of reference). Yes, they are expected to save the company by spending even more days (and nights and holidays and weekends) away from home (earning nothing if the flight doesn't go due to weather, maintenance issues (ala Barbeque Bob), or lack of staffing planning by the clearly inept airline management airline families have seen for years and the public has only seen evidence of in the last few days).

Now their strategy is to float a BS offer, go bust anyway, and then try to convince a previously purchased judge that they negotiated in good faith.

While approximately half of the Allied Pilots Association Board of Directors are pushovers and will probably want to abdicate their fiduciary responsibility for representing the pilots of American Airlines and pass this off to a vote for the membership, they are nothing compared to the current national officers who are sycophants and management wannabes. God Bless the members of the board who will fight tooth and nail to prevent a vote for the insulting "offer", further eroding the careers of the highly-skilled pilots of American Airlines and ultimately try to prevent a massive hit to all pilots at all airlines, after all- why wouldn't their management's want the same good deal if American once again, steam rolls over the pilots of American Airlines?