Six American Airlines Unions Blast Management For Poor Performance

American Airlines is increasingly trailing both Delta Air Lines and United Airlines when it comes to financial performance. In recent years, United has improved its margins, moving closer to Delta, while American has seemingly fallen further behind. It very much feels like a zero sum game between American and United.

Along those lines, unions representing employees at American aren’t happy about this, and have something to say.

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Unions angry over American’s trailing financial performance

Six different unions representing employees at American have convened this past week, to discuss concerns regarding the company’s financial performance, relative to competitors. The summit had representatives from APA, APFA, the CWA-IBT Association, PAFCA, and the TWU/IAM Association, and the goal was to explore ways to strengthen their collective position.

Here’s what the unions explained to members in a joint statement:

This landmark union leadership summit reflects our unified commitment to protecting our members, improving working conditions, and securing a more prosperous future for us and for American Airlines while demanding increased management accountability. We are committed to maintaining a cohesive, coordinated labor coalition to address the opportunities and challenges ahead.

Topics discussed include:

• The impact of management’s peer-trailing financial performance on employees and other stakeholders and on American Airlines’ operational performance.
• Cross-union solidarity and coordinated advocacy.
• Increased labor inclusion and increased management transparency and accountability.
• Joint proposals for operational and service improvements that include greater employee empowerment and enhanced employee protections.

This collaboration marks a significant step toward a more unified, impactful labor movement at American Airlines. 

The American unions certainly have a point…

The unions are spot on when it comes to pointing out the trailing financial performance of American in relation to Delta and United. There has been a complete lack of accountability at the top of American for close to a decade now.

I’d say that when American and US Airways merged in 2013, there was still a sense of wanting to make the airline more premium. But over the past decade, management’s focus has shifted multiple times, and the company essentially spends most of its time reversing decisions that were otherwise made in recent years.

First American started installing seat back TVs on narrow body planes. Then the airline ripped the TVs out. Then American entered its “the schedule is the product” era, which included trying to lower distribution costs and making other cuts. Now American is undoing that, realizing that you can’t cost cut your way into improved profitability.

At this very moment, I feel like American is moving in the right direction when it comes to focusing on improving the passenger experience. However, who knows how long it’ll be before we see a reversal there yet again. What stands out to me the most is how there hasn’t really been a leadership change throughout all these failures, as the America West folks are still running the show.

It’s understandable that union members want to look out for their own interests. But if the goal is to actually look at American’s trailing financial performance, some of the focuses the unions have are a bit questionable.

For example, “joint proposals for operational and service improvements that include greater employee empowerment and enhanced employee protections.” Okay, the first part of that sounds great, but how exactly do “enhanced employee protections” play into service improvements?

One certainly wonders what the unions see as the reason for American’s trailing performance? If you ask me, American’s failures come down to a lack of investments in the things that actually matter. American invests tens of billions of dollars in new planes, only to configure them worse than the 30-year-old planes that Delta and United are largely flying.

American needs to focus more on taking care of customers, giving them a good experience, and making them feel valued. The memo doesn’t really give me the vibe that the unions see this as the issue as well. Though who knows what was actually discussed…

Bottom line

Six American Airlines unions have issued a joint statement blasting management for the company’s lagging financial performance, and committing to working together to advocate for improvements. I’m all for increased accountability for American management, as it’s overdue.

I’m curious what’s actually being discussed at these meetings, because the joint statement doesn’t necessarily give me much confidence in terms of what they see as the problems.

What do you make of this joint memo from American’s unions?