airhead99

Now that the company has brought on notorious union buster Jerry Glass to assist during the last few weeks of negotiations, what are the odds of a mutually acceptable agreement being presented just 4 days before the deadline? Why the refusal to negotiate in the meantime? Arbitration is the road to the same devicive relationship we are all used to. Is this really management's road to the world's greatest airline? I hope I'm wrong, but the optimism among pilots is clearly fading fast.

The Drizzle

That's management's choice to make.

PurpleTurtle

When I was hired pilots stayed on the plane to smile and thank the passengers. That of course changed with pilot morale being so low.. to the point that it is strange to ever see a pilot stand at the cockpit door longer than it takes to escape and depart.

Among the biggest retailers:
Walmart
Macy's
Sears

Among the biggest airlines:
American
Delta
United

Any correlation in the order of each list is purely coincidental, because as one can easily see, Walmart does have greeters.

CaptainBigWood

Consider what it takes to make a flight attendant happy, $10 per hour.
Now consider what it is going to take for a parity raise for pilots $50-$60 per hr.
Pilots in general take pride in doing there job well, regardless of the pay.
I think DP is going to let Mr. Glass force the pilot labor costs as low as possible.
Does APA know that the honeymoon is over?

bassslayer

In the end game, I'm confident that the JCBA will be much, much better than anything US or AA would have ever gotten as stand alone carriers. How it will compare to United or Delta remains to be seen but I'm not holding my breath. Parker has never had to run an airline that is on a level playing field with his competitors and personally I don't see him doing so now. Hopefully I'm wrong. I think the new AA has the potential to be an industry leading carrier that everyone wants to work at. Much like Southwest was, and Delta is. I just don't see it happening with this management team. I think our operational performance will continue to be strong, but labor relations has always been at the bottom of their priority list and as the saying goes, a leopard can't change its spots. It will be very interesting to see how Wall Street reacts when the realize the new boss is the same as the old boss... In this case, the new boss is the old boss.

PurpleTurtle

Looks like two leopards with spots...

Beating the pilot group at the largest airline on the planet... That means a lot more to Jerry Glass than running a good airline means to Doug Parker. If Doug Parker wanted DAL labor relations then he wouldn't have brought in Glass.

What do you call two leopards with spots? A Kaleidoscope.

aa73

If a leopard never changes spots, how is it that Delta is suddenly leading the industry in labor relations when it didn't used to be that way? Something must have changed over there. I remember in the Ron Allen and Leo Mullen days, Delta morale was at an all time low.

So things do change.

However... I am not at all optimistic here at AA. Parker and Kirby seem to be yet another extension of a long line of "same old same old" with their upcoming Scope 5-seat addition proposal.

They do have an amazing opportunity to get the pilots on board but seems like they don't want to go that route. Sad.

Spoiler

For the life of me I cannot figure out how APA pilots think Parker is going to open up his wallet out of generosity. Profit sharing must be high on the list as fuel prices topple OR he is going to buy scope with an eye to the future. Either way, can anyone name an instance in which Parker and Kirby have made a similar move?
The MOU just requires cost neutral, the "irrational exuberance" of APA will come to a screeching halt when Glass meets mid November. IMHO of course.

The Chow

AA73,

I don't understand why they want this 5 seat scope BS. They're making record profits all the while asking Envoy for concessions, getting concessions from PDT and PSA, and now they're coming after you guys. What airplane are they trying to sneak in?

PurpleTurtle

Good observations.

Doug Parker talks all the time about DAL being the goal we have to beat... Of course he wants us to assume our pay and QOL also needs to beat DAL, but everything he is doing is aimed at making labor costs lower than DAL, across the board, so he doesn't need to compete.

Doug Parker has never run an airline with industry average labor costs. Never. He isn't about to start now. The very personable Jerry Glass is just one more proof.