Speaking of scheduling issues; AA has just recently gone to PBS. Legacy AA and US East were the last hold outs on line bidding. Every other major had PBS. AWA had PBS.
The AA flight attendants are still not under a single bidding system. AA has made some major screw ups with scheduling. There is a learning curve and the reserve language in the contract is ambiguous at best.
Napoleon once said; "
Never ascribe to
malice that which is
adequately explained by
incompetence." That defines AA scheduling. How else do you give all the block holders all their ability to drop all their Christmas trips??
The culture is made worse, in my opinion, by the way upper management compensates line management. They are heavily weighted on a bonus system. Parker is a spread sheet guy and he believes in measurable metrics. On time push, miss-handled baggage, crew sick calls, fuel use, etc. There has to be a measurable metric so he can rate you with your peers.
This is why agents will close the doors early and leave non-revs behind. Thy are afraid of being late and then they are in trouble with their manager because his bonus is tied to his on-time performance. Chief pilots are the front line defense on sick calls from pilots but not all chief pilots are skilled in interpersonal communication.
My last F/O said that when he returned from furlough, the first thing the DCA chief pilot told him he lived to far away from base. There was no fixed report time in the contract but that doesn't stop the chief pilots from giving you their opinion. No-contacts, late or no commutes, late check-ins, sick calls immediately prior to sign in are all measurable issues and so the chief pilots are aggressive on these issues.
One problem with this concept of accountability is that it promotes blame shifting wherever possible. If you can blame another department, then it doesn't count. I have had agents beg me to call maintenance over a very small issue so that they don't have to take the delay; even when it wasn't really a maintenance issue. (There are no points deducted for a maintenance delay.)
In order for the culture of AA to change they will have to change how they compensate line management on the bonus issue. The bonuses are big, a chief pilot may earn an extra $60K for perceived good performance. However there is no incentive to do a team approach to anything across departments under the current system.