American Airlines Pilots Want A New Contract, Running Out Of Patience

Good lord, Parker is like the Trump of the airline industry... completely dishonest and incompetent. Perhaps AA's pilots should consider a strike that will make AA lose so much money that the board will finally have enough and kick Parker out on the poor performer express lane he belongs in.

AA management is going to sit on this and do nothing until this fall at the earliest. In the meantime pilots will grow increasingly frustrated and will employ their “fly safe” tactics during the busy summer season. Management will cry foul and seek, and receive, a court injunction against the pilots but operational reliability will continue to suffer. Then about a year from now they’ll hammer out a new agreement

Ditto for the flight attendants.

The only real losers in this game are the customers who by choice or necessity have to endure another year of bad service from AA and it’s employees.

"Achieve industry-leading hourly pay rate"

Yes, I understand the union wants the highest pay out there. Can you understand why the airline does NOT want that and would not be amenable to a contract that pays the most in the industry? They may get there, but why would AA want to do that now?

One more reason why I just changed my Hilton Aspire $250 airline credit from American to Delta.

Thank goodness I’m not hub captive! One of the benefit living in a big city; plenty of choices and I can careless if AA pilots and/or flight attendants decide to call in sick last minute! I guess I should be booking UA or Delta for the later half of the year....

@David

American Airlines pilots are already handsomely paid with great benefits. The union push to suck a company dry never ends and will inevitably lead to more bankruptcy. Nothing good for the shareholders or passengers come from these extreme pilot demands.

These pilots are already paid enough!! ENOUGH of trying to bankrupt this carrier by its GREEDY unions!! The pilots received a mid contract raise already! What about other work groups making pennies vs these pilots! Remote flying commercial aircraft cannot come quick enough!

So I guess we can all expect delays on AA for the upcoming year, again!?!

@Adam Rogerson
Without pilots and flight attendants an airline can't function. Yes, they are probably being greedy but why shouldn't they be when CEO Parker gets a very high salary while his complete lack of vision continues to worsen AA's stock?

People seem to forget who actually does the work of an airline. Short of professional sports teams, I cannot imagine an industry where there is a more direct connection between the labor of the employee and the profits of the company. Pilots and flight attendants run the airline. Parker and every airline CEO could fall off the face of the earth tomorrow and air travel would still continue. You cannot say the same about pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and air traffic control.

AA mechanics still don’t have contact since you did them a disservice by ignoring them Makes you’re reporting questionable

@Doug Parker is not paid a salary. His compensation, while large, is entirely stock based

This whole thing could be solved by adding seats and devaluing the Aadvantage program. Parker's got this.

I think the biggest mistake Mr. Parker's team made was removing the bonus structure from the unions' last contracts. It's true that some of what drives an airline is outside of the pilots' and FAs' control, but the reality is incentives on performance and customer only align if they exist.

Generally, I agree that American's management lacks vision. I think Captain Ferguson gets that right. But to imply that the APA contract proposals solve the needs of the customer when, bluntly, the average customer wants the cheapest ticket, means he can't accept the reality of the airline industry either. Sure, you can extract marginally higher RASM under limited, usually regulated circumstances (slot constraints), but the reality is the spreads just aren't that large to justify "industry-leading" anything.

I have a question from this... hearing all of this, the absolutely no engagement by what seems just about all levels of employee at AA... and the recent issue of the baggage handler... is AA a truly safe airline? We all know the less the engaged someone is ... the more eff ups occur. Are we getting to a place to where it is only a matter of time that something really bad will happen?

Ugh, unions. In a free society, the threat of being fired would place the negotiations on a level playing field.

@james N
in most jobs if your company is treating you badly you can just go to another company and recieve similar pay and benefits, but that does not exist in aviation because there is no universal seniority list.

To all the leftists on here complaining about greed, you would be happy working for an employer that underpays you compared to your peers? American pilots make less than all of their peers, Delta, United, FedEx, UPS and for the same category of aircraft less than Southwest. Not a single one of you understands why a union exists in aviation nor are you aware of the facts, but carry on, ignorance suits you beautifully.

@Stevo - do you even understand the concept of a “leftist”? A leftist is much more likely to side with the unions...

Emil - you’re right, the average airline customer... can’t accept the reality of the airline industry either.” You all think the points and upgrades and lounges can be provided on economy (plus?) fares alone? Most of the capital expenditures to provide those niceties have been done on the backs of labor groups’ wage stagnation and lost pensions. How can those international carriers provide the nose-up-the-butt you’ve come to expect? Government subsidization.

So it doesn’t surprise me that a knee-jerk reaction would be to call pilots and attendants “greedy” and proclaim them already overpaid. All the labor groups at American have a DIRECT impact on the success of the operation and its only thru their sacrifice of “mandatory overtime,” suffering under inconsistent applications of work rules and overcoming lack of support from outclassed supervisors (ON A DAILY BASIS) that anything manages to proceed.

Nor is it surprising that another reaction would be to just abandon AA and fly DL. There’s not just one bad actor in this more that we call American (USA) aviation. Yes, the airlines have contributed much to the industry’s decline. But I reckon that once they realized just how disloyal the general customer base had become, they had to figure out a method to survive.

Also, props to Stevo for pointing out that yes, AA groups are paid less than peers at other (more?!?) profitable airlines. And can someone please explain the virtue that we end up recognizing when a CEO takes compensation in stock versus a paycheck? How does that encourage his best performance for the company, and company, and not indulge in ways to manipulate the stock price in correlation with his tranche awards?

Pay up for the pilots - save money on the flight attendant contract.

Good luck pilots!! The company is all promises until negotiations start then they are pure BS..
Corporate Greed at its best!
If you do get a raise they'll take it back in infated insurance premium!!
Text book accounting!! GREED!!
THANKS PARKER!!!
Maint...