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Old 09-18-2020, 05:53 AM
  #101  
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Originally Posted by FlyyGuyy View Post
Yeah, hard to believe that anyone thought the b was a good idea.

Bob Crandall did. Guess who the new headquarters campus is being named after?


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Old 09-18-2020, 07:27 AM
  #102  
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Originally Posted by FlyyGuyy View Post
Yeah, hard to believe that anyone thought the b was a good idea.
They won't admit it but the folks hired under the B scale were extremely lucky. They saw fast upgrades and tons of growth. Prior to the B scale AA wasn't anything more than a regional type carrier. I'm not sure they even had int'l flights. Crandall ordered the large S80 fleet and the rest is history.

Instead, Crandall proposed building what amounted to a new, low-cost airline inside American, but without the dirty terminals and planes, surly employees and scheduling problems that plagued his cut-rate competitors. Crandall's method, though not entirely novel, was widely hailed as the ''two-tier'' wage system. Existing employees, the so-called A track, received a higher wage than the newcomers on the B track. ''We went to the unions and said, 'If you will agree with us to let us hire new people at market rates, we will double the size of the airline, and everyone will move up fast.'

* ''

Crandall, touring the company to make his case in person, promised his employees that they would not lose their current wages and benefits, and he went even further: he promised them lifetime employment and a profit-sharing agreement. By a narrow margin, the unions agreed. Over the next six years, labor costs fell to 34 percent of operating expenses. Crandall had bought himself nearly a decade of labor peace.
It's a fact of life - practically every airline has seen a similar trajectory. In a way, the regionals were also a form of a b-scale which also saw massive growth.

In the mid 80's, US Air was *the* place to be. Best contract, best pay, lots of growth, straight to the right seat. Delta was a po-dunk airline in the south that had folks rotting away for years in the FE seat.

Fast forward 15 years later and US Air, now US Airways, was half its previous size and being gutted on all sides by SWA and United. United was *the* place to be in the late 90s. Then 9/11 and the fuel price issue.

SWA had low pay and was fairly small pre-9/11. Fast forward a few years, and they were *the* place to be. Lots of growth, aggressively taking US Airways market share, wildly profitable due to the fuel hedges.

The only thing going for AA was the retirements - additional investment that was put into the carrier was making us less competitive and more costly vice lowering our costs. It's a death by a thousand cuts. I was hopeful that the merger would shake out some of that mentality but it doesn't seem like it did.

Spirit on the other hand - as they grow - their CASM decreases. They get more competitive and profitable as they spread out their costs.

Crandall was focused on unit costs and had a goal of making AA the world's "cost effective" (read: inexpensive) carrier. Here is a two min log video of him telling a story about that....pretty funny.

https://youtu.be/6XXtqX01PzU

That mentality still permeates some of the long time employees here...I notice it every now and then by their (small) behavioral cues.

Meanwhile, we had a fashion show, ice cream bar, and disco ball at our uniform unveiling. So much waste here.

Last edited by Name User; 09-18-2020 at 07:44 AM.
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Old 09-18-2020, 12:31 PM
  #103  
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Originally Posted by Allegheny View Post
TankerDriver has hit the nail on the head. I am retired AA via US Airways and I consider myself lucky to have gotten out intact. I retired just about 2 years ago, and have been talking to my peers who can't believe they are watching another train wreck in progress. First it was the "B scale" . Most of you on this forum don't even know what that is. During the 1980's, when we were hired, we were hired on a contract where we earned half of what those hired months before were earning. The original AA, "B scale" was for life. Under that contract you would never earn what more senior members earned. After the United Strike of 1985, the B scale was reduced to 5 years.


After dodging that bullet along come the RJ's, first just a few and then the RJ's grew to encompass over half the mainline fleets. The greatest increase was immediately after the dot.com crash, there were pilots on the street for almost 7 years. The first US bankruptcy included a loss of pension, and paycuts. Then at US a second bankruptcy, more givebacks, more RJ's. I was never furloughed but I gave up my left seat twice and lost over $100K per year in pay.


Then comes the AA merger and "Dugwizer" has spent all the money on stock buybacks. The senior guys have a 2000 yard stare. There has never been a really stable period in our careers. Guys just want a chance to get out intact. I spend almost 20 years in the right seat. I got hired on the "B scale" . It took me 5 years to break 50K at a major. Then a big raise followed two years later with more pay cuts and loss of pension. The in chapter 11 x 2 more pay cuts. I went from a line holding MD-80 captain to bottom reserve AB in my base and then the base closed. I was able to end a 32 year career as a middle of the list block holding group 11 captain. I am not complaining. Like the "Trucking Song", "What a long strange trip it's been."


This is not an excuse or a plea for sympathy. It is simply an explanation of the mindset of those who live through the turmoil in the industry over the last 30 years. When I was hired at US Air there were major carriers called Eastern, Pan AM, TWA, Piedmont, North West, Republic, Ozark, PSA and even People Express. Many of them merged but there was also a great loss of jobs along the way. The relatively stable Airline market that exists today, absent the Corona Virus epidemic, is as the result of massive blood letting and carnage over the last 35 years.
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Old 09-18-2020, 05:31 PM
  #104  
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Originally Posted by TankerDriver View Post
Because the senior end of the list full of people who have been furloughed multiple times, been through multiple chapter 11's, multiple mergers, spent 20 years in the right seat through the "lost decade", etc. didn't want to entertain a pay cut. Plain and simple. This has come straight out of more than one union reps mouth during several town halls I've listened in on over the last couple months and I believe it. I think they think this furlough is going to be short-lived and they just don't want to give up pay in the last handful of the most lucrative years they'll have in this career. Regardless of covid-19 the movement here over the next decade is still going to be pretty good.
The movement will be really good until they try and jam single pilot operations on the pilot group. There is always a plan being hatched by management to screw labor. Count on it.
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Old 09-18-2020, 05:50 PM
  #105  
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Originally Posted by Cicada View Post
The movement will be really good until they try and jam single pilot operations on the pilot group. There is always a plan being hatched by management to screw labor. Count on it.
While I don't doubt the potential evil-doings of management, this is never gonna happen in the next two decades, if not more.
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Old 09-19-2020, 04:12 AM
  #106  
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Originally Posted by Cicada View Post
The movement will be really good until they try and jam single pilot operations on the pilot group. There is always a plan being hatched by management to screw labor. Count on it.
single pilot ops shouldn’t even be on the horizon of things to worry about. Think, bankruptcy, merger, scope, etc. Focus!
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