Originally Posted by MarineGrunt

When some of you folks talked about sub-regional work rules, I really didn't realize where you were coming from until I have been here a while...

SOMETHING FOR UAL/DAL PROSPECTS TO CONSIDER..... I came from a non-union regional and we did not have ANY of this BS below...

I ran into a buddy (767UAL FO) the other day. He said he made $30,000 last month and only flew 60hrs. I asked him how the heck he did that.... he said he had a few canceled trips and just picked up a posted trip from another pilot, plus a couple of premium trips... this kind of ticked me off, because we can't do anything like this at AA. Why? RECOVERY OBLIGATION. If you have a cancelled trip for whatever reason, you cannot do anything else within the footprint of that trip. Oh, but you ARE on the hook by the company to get assigned another trip and must be contactable every afternoon until your original trip footprint has passed. Oh, and you don't get paid extra if you do get assigned another trip (unless the new one exceeds the credit for the original). Also, I flew with a West captain who told me some of their FOs would get close to 300k/yr, even with their old crap pay because of the same thing (not sure I believed him but, still).

Want to call in sick? Ha... with what sick time? This is a funny thing because none of the Captains I fly with realize how incredibly slow we accrue sick time (most have 500-1000hrs from the OLD work rules). If you call in sick for one 4 day trip, that is pretty close to all the sick time you spent a year accruing. I'm trying to get to around 400-500hrs eventually, so I can cover about 6 months sick until LTD kicks in, in case of some health issue. This will probably take most of my career to do.

Do you commute? At my NON UNION REGIONAL we could post/trade partial trips... i.e., last turn of a trip, last leg, etc. Not at AA. We now have a gazillion pilots based in LAX that live in PHX. Probably many LAX trips that end in a PHX turn. Want to end your trip at home and give that leg to a guy going to work? Won't happen at AA. The trip is all or nothing.

Oh, I almost forgot about IMAX. If you plan on crediting an average of 90hrs a month, go elsewhere. At AA, you are limited to 1080 credit hrs a year. That's not FLYING, that's CREDIT. The only exception is any extra credit accrued through premium trips. So... wife/kid gets very sick and you need to work your butt off to pay medical bills... or did you lose everything in a hurricane?? Well, just as long as you don't avg more than 90hrs a month, ok!

Oh, speaking of premium..... lol (this is mostly where my buddy made the $$$). This company will do anything they can to avoid paying it. My last 4 day went premium for the CA. Guess what they did with the trip? Broke it up into a million pieces so the only thing that paid premium was the first turn. Unless there is a trip going somewhere where they can't swap out a crew member, you probably won't see very many full trips go PM. And even then, they'll probably just DH someone and break it up anyway.

Minimum calendar day... again, something we had at my NON UNION REGIONAL. Love red eyes? I hope so, cuz yer getting paid garbage to do them... example... calendar day 1: JFK-LAX... calendar day 2: mostly sit... calendar day 3: red eye LAX-JFK. What's the credit? 10:20rs for 3 days. What would it be if we had an industry standard min cal DAY? 15:30hrs. I'm sure there are many Intl trips that this would affect too.

The next thing is that our union is a total clown show. Leave it to them to always try to find a way to 'stick it to the man' and drive a wedge right between the pilot group at the same time. They pat themselves on the back with the lastest pay raise, but as some have mentioned on this forum, its obvious the company did it to be competitive with UAL and DAL new hires. I'm sure they got tired of folks bailing out of training for 7% more hourly pay, better work rules and profit sharing that will dang near buy you a new car every year. But APA says it's all because you didn't float. Sure. But at least they drew a line in the sand and STOPPED trying to improve our contract over something that effects a small fraction of the pilot group. I'm sure management were busting their guts on that one! Another wedge...

Other airlines have their complaints, sure, but we are so behind an industry standard contract it's laughable. And what's scary, is that most of the pilot group doesn't even realize it. This is were I finally came to the conclusion that we need to flush all these turds and bring in ALPA or someone who knows what a contract should look like. I don't know how APA can go from where we are, to a decent contract. There is so much ground to reclaim and you always have to give to get something....

The best thing we can do to make improvements is to point out these items that keep AA in last place among legacy airlines, is to keep encouraging prospective pilots to go elsewhere and rightfully so. The more mgmt sees folks bail from week 5 or training because so much of the contract is better at UAL/DAL, they might finally wake up. Mgmt even showed their hand by the 8% raise.

I'm sure there are more things that are egregious, but I'm still on my first cup of coffee, so I'm a little slow today. Yeah, I know, "if it's so bad, why don't you go somewhere else?" Well, I would, but that ship has kind of sailed for me. I live in an AA base and have been here 5 yrs. If I were 2yrs in and lived elsewhere, I'd be renewing my UA/DL app daily.

But the good news is that "I'll be senior someday" and I guess none of this will matter...

Originally Posted by Mover

This should be mandatory reading for anyone considering AA at this point.

Originally Posted by Name User

In order to IMAX out you have to go down to about 6 days off a month for 10 months.



Yes you get paid reserve guarantee or something like a minimum line value which is actually better because then you can pick up premium on any day of the month.

Originally Posted by mainlineAF

It should be mandatory reading for all the pilots. Only way to get something fixed is to know it's broken.

Originally Posted by Arado 234

Print it out. Hang it up in the crew room. Make copies and leave them on the airplane for the next crew to read it. Break the ignorance.

Originally Posted by Saabs

While it's not easy it certainly isn't as hard as going down to 6 days a month. High credit trips and riding the makeup list for broken trips make it doable. I almost did it but fell shy by just a bit.....

Originally Posted by full of luv

So in other words, IF YOUR SENIOR, then the contract can work for you, for everyone else it's more of a noose?

Originally Posted by MarineGrunt

Better yet, when new hires hit the APA dinner night, this is what the new folks need to hear, not the good ol "you won the lottery" circle [you know what]... I know we're all happy to be at AA, it may not seem like it in my last few posts, but I am blessed to be here.. Overall, most of us came from someplace not as good, but let's face it... we want a legacy, airline with legacy work rules. Unfortunately, we get a big jet airline with sub-regional work rules. History proves that our union doesn't have the talons to make a bite, but if the new hires are told the TRUTH about the massive contract disparity and they choose to go elsewhere before/during/after training..... well, the truth may have an impact. Getting that truth out has PROVED (in the new pay rate) that it makes an impact.

Tell new guys the truth... legacy jets, legacy hourly rate, but regional work rules and sub standard W2. This is fact, not a poke in the company eye. Everyone should know this....