Quote:
American Airlines to lay off thousands
The Business Review (Albany)
At its annual meeting Wednesday, Fort Worth. Texas-based AMR Corp. officials said that high fuel costs will bring additional fees -- including a $15 charge for travelers' first checked bag--thousands of layoffs, and retirement of more than 75 aircraft from its American Airlines fleet.
The new baggage fee is effective for tickets purchased on or after June 15.
The airline giant expects to shave 11 percent to 12 percent of its domestic flights in the fourth quarter. This will result in the grounding by year's end of approximately 40 to 45 American Airlines jets, 35 to 40 American Eagle regional jets, plus some number of Eagle turbo-props, said Gerard Arpey, chairman and chief executive.
AMR (NYSE: AMR) had already planned to retire some of its MD-80s, which are less fuel-efficient than others in its fleet, and replacing them with 34 new 737 aircraft next year, and an additional 36 in 2010.
The tightened flight schedule will result in job cuts at American and its subsidiary, American Eagle. American Eagle handles 3 percent of the passenger traffic at Albany International Airport.
CEO Arpey said layoffs would be across the board and could number in the thousands.
The company reported that fuel prices have increased more than 10 percent since its first-quarter results five weeks ago when it lost $328 million. The company's fuel expenses were up more than $660 million in the first quarter.
"If $125-per-barrel oil is the new reality," Arpey said, "preserving the progress we have made is going to require some significant and difficult changes."
http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany...html?ana=yfcpc
The news keeps getting better and better these days...
Originally Posted by Past V1
Thursday, May 22, 2008 - 10:15 AM EDTAmerican Airlines to lay off thousands
The Business Review (Albany)
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At its annual meeting Wednesday, Fort Worth. Texas-based AMR Corp. officials said that high fuel costs will bring additional fees -- including a $15 charge for travelers' first checked bag--thousands of layoffs, and retirement of more than 75 aircraft from its American Airlines fleet.
The new baggage fee is effective for tickets purchased on or after June 15.
The airline giant expects to shave 11 percent to 12 percent of its domestic flights in the fourth quarter. This will result in the grounding by year's end of approximately 40 to 45 American Airlines jets, 35 to 40 American Eagle regional jets, plus some number of Eagle turbo-props, said Gerard Arpey, chairman and chief executive.
AMR (NYSE: AMR) had already planned to retire some of its MD-80s, which are less fuel-efficient than others in its fleet, and replacing them with 34 new 737 aircraft next year, and an additional 36 in 2010.
The tightened flight schedule will result in job cuts at American and its subsidiary, American Eagle. American Eagle handles 3 percent of the passenger traffic at Albany International Airport.
CEO Arpey said layoffs would be across the board and could number in the thousands.
The company reported that fuel prices have increased more than 10 percent since its first-quarter results five weeks ago when it lost $328 million. The company's fuel expenses were up more than $660 million in the first quarter.
"If $125-per-barrel oil is the new reality," Arpey said, "preserving the progress we have made is going to require some significant and difficult changes."
http://albany.bizjournals.com/albany...html?ana=yfcpc
The news keeps getting better and better these days...
I posted this yesterday in another thread, I'll repeat it here:
Well, not good news at all. But let's take a look at the numbers. The latest status 15 report (AMR lingo for seniority list) shows 10.35 pilots for every MD-80. The press release indicated a fleet reduction of 40-45 MD-80's, or 465 pilot jobs at risk. What the press release fails to mention, is that AMR is still planning to take delivery of 34 737's in 2009 and 36 in 2010. The plan still remains to swap those out 1 for 1 (mostly) with MD-80's. What remains to be seen is whether these aircraft groundings are an acceleration of the MD-fleet retirement, or a permanent reduction. Remember, the 11-12% is for the FOURTH QUARTER, overall annual mainline reduction is 3-4 %.
The plan before this announcement was to have a net gain in aircraft by the end of 2009, all they are really doing is flattening out the growth and using large numbers in a single quarter to increase the physiological effect. It's an old AMR trick.
My guess is that furlough recalls will be stop for a while, but I doubt we will see outright furloughs this year. JMHO.