Airline Pilot Central Forums - Should you leave AA?

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Thanks for the tip, sorry for thread creep :D

If you are senior to me of course you should leave AA.

If you are young and can live in base at another airline then it might be worth it, commuting sucks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TRZ06 (Post 2322808)

You should leave AA if you think things are going to get better than they are now. Particularly after we are all on PBS, you will see what is realistically in your future. I would not count on much new flying. I would not count on a huge increase of aircraft, particularly in the higher pay groups. On the positive side, retirements are coming big time so progression should be fairly fast for those on the property now. Pay will continue to be lagging and management will stretch negotiations out for a long time...years beyond the due date thanks to the RLA as always. I never have flown for anyone other than AA, so I can't compare us with others. Contractually though, we are definitely a solid 4 out of the 4 majors and 6 out of 6 if you count FEX and UPS.
The attitude here sucks from the lowest employee group to the highest. Three and a half decades and I am still seeing it decline.
It impacts pride in your airline and pride in your profession. If you don't think that morale is that important then you haven't been here.
That has to count for a lot in the long run.
Finally, at least do some light research on what this company is laying its foundation on versus its competitors. Their strategy is quite a bit different and is based on unrealistic expectations in the future, IMO. Reminds me of our economy before the last collapse.
22 billion in debt and rising spending all that cheap money. Believe me, when the music stops they will once again depend on the employees and bankruptcy courts to bail themselves out.
Good Luck on your decision. Hopefully you already knew what Ive been ranting about. I think most of us do.

I'm a 16.5 yr person nb fo and agree with the above. AA is tripling down on RJ's to reduce our flying as much as possible. Our contract is below industry standard for at least 6 years currently, probably 8. You can talk about pay rates all you want but all of our pay is hard flying time no credit. You don't sit in a hotel over the weekend for 6 hrs per day like fedex or ups. We have almost no pay for long layovers and a 3 hr minimum day that you see sometimes 5-7 times a month. 3 day trip= 3, 8, 4.5=15.5 again. What's that 2 hours you didn't get paid on the first day worth at Delta or United rates? Do that 5 times a month. How much less money per month did you make than Delta? How many extra days did you work? What's 15 days of reserve a month at SW for a short time compared to 18 days a month reserve at AA for YEARS? 3% profit sharing compared to 11-20% everywhere else? the list goes on and on but yes this job is very desirable compared to a regional job!:mad:

Are there talks of contract negotiation at AA?
Up pay/benefits?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Student01 (Post 2325381)

Are there talks of contract negotiation at AA?
Up pay/benefits?

I think negotiations open in 2019 for a new contract in 2020 but why would the company negotiate anything good when the current contract is kicking the pilot's arse?

DL and UA have more RJ's than AA. The upper limit seems about the same (looking at the contract comparison). So any increase in AA RJ flying appears to be closing the gap to DL/UA.

How many additonal P&C hrs are being paid by DL's CD? Until we have that data we don't know what the value is AFTER the company adjusts their schedules to minimize CD P&C. DL buddy says the quality of their sequences/pairings went down as the company rescheduled their trips to avoid paying P&C ('soft pay').

Quote:

Originally Posted by A330FoodCritic (Post 2325506)

I think negotiations open in 2019 for a new contract in 2020 but why would the company negotiate anything good when the current contract is kicking the pilot's arse?

So they can go BEFORE DAL and UAL.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sliceback (Post 2325731)

lol what did you just say?

Quote:

Originally Posted by AFTrainerGuy (Post 2325768)

So they can go BEFORE DAL and UAL.

Thats simple. We just vote no.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sliceback (Post 2325731)

DL and UA have more RJ's than AA.

You sure about this? The latest info I can find is in Q4 2015 for AA is 587 RJs. Delta's most recent count in Q4 2016 is 457.

I could post this in either thread go to AA/ leave AA. When I applied to USAirways (fall 2013, waiting DOJ approval on the merger) I was told by many people not to apply, because of the crappy pay and previous merger mess. I was also told by nearly every airline pilot I know that American also sucks and would be a miserable place to go.

The one exception was Albie (ECIC) who said today's turd could be tomorrow's gem. This made sense to me and when I was hired, I figured it'd be a miserable place to work for the first 5 years minimum and possibly 6 to 9 years, but the payoff would be riding the bow wave of new hires.

The merger has gone smoother than I expected and so has the SLI. The company has performed better than I expected this early as well. It hasn't been miserable, I'm three years in and will stick it out as planned.