Basic questions about QOL at AA
 

Hey everyone, I’ve been incessantly reading through hundreds of posts trying to find answers to certain things, and I noticed that a lot of basic questions I feel pilots want to know aren’t easily found or very superficially discussed in this forum. So, with your help, and in light of this hiring wave at AA, I thought it would be incredibly helpful to have a post that could answer some questions for pilots looking to make a move to AA.

So, if anyone is willing to provide some insight… here are some questions (sorry for the long list)

1: Average amount of days off per month as a line holder? Is dropping/swapping flexible? Is it possible to continuously get 18-20 days off a month, for example? What does a normal schedule look like and how much can it be manipulated? Does it compare to the flexibility at Spirit, Frontier, or Southwest, for example? How flexible are things at American?

2: Potential for higher earnings. We all know what the rates on APC are so we can figure out minimum guarantee. But, what does a normal schedule look like that goes over guarantee? There are multiple posts about pilots making well over the projected guarantee, (NB CA’s in the 400k mark), how is this possible? How does the system allow pilots to earn more than guarantee?

3: Commutability. Obviously living in base will improve anyone’s QOL, but how commutable are trips? What is the average length of trips? What can new hires expect?

4: What is the current system for bidding or awarding lines? What is TTOT? What is TTS? What is IMAX? (Sorry if these are incorrectly spelled). Are you stuck with your line after it’s awarded? How often can you adjust your schedule to make it to your liking?

5: What are the bases expected out of training? How often can you switch base? Can you switch equipment/base during training? Can you pick up trips from other bases? Personally, as a new hire I am looking for ORD, how would I be able to obtain the base of my liking? If I am awarded XXX/XXX (equipment/base) in new hire training, how can I switch to an equipment/base that better suits my QOL?

6: How long on average can a new hire be expected to be on reserve?

7: What are your reserve rules? Can you move around reserve days? Can you create a huge block of days of continuous reserve and have a longer block of days off? How are days off organized during reserve? For example, is there any “4 days off minimum between trips/blocks of reserve” type of language in your cba?

8: What are the current upgrade times? How long can new upgrades expect to be on reserve?

9: Medical benefits? Good/Bad/Expensive?

10: What is the training footprint?

11: And lastly, what are some things you as a pilot at AA wish you would have known before joining, or is there anything else you would like to share to potential new hires getting offered a the job at AA.

Thank you

Where are you flying now? Your questions demand so much detail that one could write a book to fully answer them

this

plus to whatever degree someone writes a novel
1) it will change with seniority
2) it will change over time

Your question about captains making 400k and breaking guarantee leads me to believe you are not in the airline business yet

Also stuff like bases out of training are discussed in the class drop threads. Pay on other threads.

1. As a brand new hire my first month I got a 15 day off line (30 day bid period). All 3 days, 86 hours of credit. That’s LGA 737, but still, I got a line immediately. Flexibility I have no idea I’m not even done OE so I can’t even try to adjust my schedule but it seems it’s pretty flexible minus being junior in a holiday.

3. Commutablity is what you make it. You just have to be smart and you have the privilege of booking the Jumpseat 8 days out. You don’t even have to take it if there are seats in the back. Trips can be 1-5 days, I live near base so I like shorter trips had no issue getting all 3 days month 1…

4. see above idk yet

5. LGA/LAX/MIA, if you’re young most likely LGA, all these bases have multiple airports to cover, they go junior, any airline with these bases will be what goes to new hires. You can get ORD or practically any base in your first vacancy. I only have to do 1 month not in the base I wanted. At 6 months you can be in narrow body right seat in any base as of now. 6 month seat lock, but you can move bases almost any month through vacancies, and mutual base exchange.

6. See above I’m doing 0 days of reserve but that
like anything else is base/seniority dependent but looking at some of the bases through 3XP it doesn’t look like it takes long to hold a line in a lot of bases.

7. Not too familiar, I know you can bid min/max and some other stuff for days such as max 3 days on reserve or max 6 days l, again more seniority helps you get what you want.

8. less than 3 years, it may be right around 2.5 years or less with the next vacancy, reserve who knows, I know I’m not upgrading immediately when I can but it’s fast.

9. I personally would say good and inexpensive. I’m younger though and don’t have health issues so I haven’t dove into the details too much.

10. 2-3 months you may have a gap where you’re gone but you’re getting paid ~80-83 hours a month and another ~28 to do training modules on an iPad, pretty good deal IMO.

11. It’s really amazing the negativity on these forums. I have had extremely limited exposure. Everyone I talk to seems to be very happy. I would not listen to the negativity on these forums really at all.

1. Your PBS monthly schedule, as a line holder will most likely be around 15 to 16 days of work. More junior line-holders will generally not hold many commutable trips. Must be quite senior to hold shorter trips. Trips are anywhere from 1 to 5 days in length. Reserve schedules have 18 days of reserve and either 12 or 13 days off. Reserves are awarded either a short-call or long-call reserve line. Long-call is 12 from call to report time. No specified time for short-call time. Currently, with our trip trading options, you can have a fairly flexible schedule. Early in 2022 the company and APA agave agreed to eliminate one of our trip platforms. It was are most flexible trading platform. So to be honest, no one can tell you how flexible your schedule will end up being because it is a total unknown. Most seem to believe, and they have a lot of reason to support the opinion, that the new trip trade system will likely be a huge hit to our quality of life. Many pilots used the older system to their advantage. The way that the company manages IT, it likely will be disaster early on. Have to give it time, to give a better answer. Overall I would say it will be less flexible than other airlines.

2. your pay simply will be your hourly pay rate by how many hours you work. I have never broken guarantee as a reserve pilot at this company, but in certain bid statuses it is possible or even likely. Reserve guarantee is 73 hours for long-call and 76 hours for short-call. Max you will get is around 85, which is limited per the contract. Each day will typically, pay a minimum of 5:15 for a day of actual duty(actually on a trip, not sitting reserve). As a line-holder, your pay is totally within your control. Your pbs monthly schedule award will normally be in 80s or even low 90s as a junior line holder. To be able to get a lower time schedule, you typically have to be in the top 50% of the pilots in your bid status because of the required minimum line value constraint that PBS will invoke on your schedule. You can pick up trips on your days off up to the month maximum (different each month but typically in the 92 to 97 hour range, sometime set at FAR max limit in busier months). Premium trips don’t count toward the maximum. For example, if you were awarded an 88 hour schedule, and the monthly max was 92, you would not be able to pick up any trips at normal 100% pay, you would have to try and get a premium trip, because that allows you to fly over the monthly max.

3. Trips range from 1 to 5 days in length. Most trips are 3 to 4 days in length. We are seeing more and more 5 day trips as we go through time. 5 day trips tend to be most commutable and about half the 4day trips are commutable. Seems like most 3 day trips are much less commutable. Trips vary widely across all the different bid statuses.

4. see what I wrote above, it explains a lot of this question, but to expand. TTOT is trip trade with open time through Sabre. TTS is our online trip trade system which is a seniority based trip trade system that runs at 8am and 8pm every day. TTOT, the most flexible of the two, and that is not saying much, is going away in early 2022. TTOT is run through sabre, which is where we locate our schedules and flight plans. It is a real-time live trading system. Once TTOT goes away, we we run on a new TTS system that is online and uses both seniority-based computer runs (twice per day) and live first-come-first-serve type. It will likely be a huge quality of life hit on our line holders. Time will tell.

5. MIA, LAX, and LGA are most likely bases out of training. We normally run 4 to 5 equipment/base bids per year. They will cover either a 1, 2, or 3 month period. Latest new-hires have been getting clt, dfw, ord, phx etc on their first vacancy bid they participate in after DOH. ORD aid only 737 and 787. You should hold it, and be bidding and flying in ORD within 1 year of DOH, likely only 3 to 4 months, totally depends on what senior pilots bid though.

6. I would think in the junior bases like LAX, Lga, and Mia. You might only have 1 to 4 months of reserve. In the more senior bases, if you awarded those early on after DOH, you could have 12 to 18 months on reserve. Current junior line-holder in Chicago is from September 2019.

7. Reserve is awarded in blocks of between 3 and 7 working days, depends on your bid status. 12 or 13 off days per month, 18 working days. Practically No way to trade reserve days. Have to call scheduling the day before only, and they are rarely accommodating. Days off between reserve days, is 1 to any number. Must have 1 block of 4 days off in a row, each month, unless waived by pilot in pbs bidding. Can only be awarded 1 occupancy of a single day off, each month. All bidding is pbs bidding by the way.

8. current upgrade time is 5 years. Unsure of time for upgrades to stay on reserve.

9. medical benefits are worse than most, from personal experience. You can see ALL of this by going to my.aa.com. Non-employees can view all of our medical plans, coverage, and cost, just go to website and explore for yourself.

10. 1 week of indoc, go home for an unspecified amount of time and return for about 3.5 weeks of aircraft procedures and sim training. Most training done in dfw or clt.

11. Not a great company, they are struggling very much. You can expect that you will almost always be paid less in total compensation(per time worked) than our competitors. Reserve rules are not great, but are better than United reserve rules, in my opinion. If we do see another huge downturn in air travel, if you are at the bottom on the seniority list, you are more likely to be furloughed at aa than other carriers. Other carriers and their unions work harder to keep everyone all on board, but all are still capable of furlough. United and Delta seem to be trying to take back more of their flying to mainline, and we seem to be hard set on keeping our regional flying as big as possible. We are paying our regional pilots as much as 180,000 bucks to just not go to another mainline carrier. They clearly value regional feed above ALL else, which speaks to our managers one-tracked out of focus approach to everything. They only know how to manage cheap short term solutions, never seeing the full picture. Even if the industry is beginning to show how unsustainable the regional feed flying, at this scale is, aa leaders will be the LAST to recognize and act on it. They follow, not lead. United and/or delta will make a decision, then aa will be forced to respond.
I won’t go further, it you can read about our many issues regarding reassignments, NEA, outsourcing etc, all on this forum.

I think that answers most of them.

In 4 years my awarded schedule never looks like what I actually fly.

Maybe you’ll gain some insight when you’ve been here longer than one trip with a CKA whose job is to make you comfortable, food for thought

It’s always like that when you’re new. Takes a little bit to become jaded.

For sure. It takes time to really get how a company really operates, the shine wears off and reality comes through

Well what I was trying to say is that from talking to people who actually fly/work the line and have been for years, it’s mostly positive. These forums are mostly negative. So either most AA pilots are liars in person for no apparent reason or these forums are more negative than reality. Of course my personal experience is limited.

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To be fair, they are TRYING to pay the WO pilots nearly that amount of money to stay and flow to AA, but the only ones that take it are the ones who know that going to AA is what they’re going to do (full disclosure: I’m one of them).

The rest that have any aspirations towards DAL, UAL, or FDX are refusing the bonus money and making it to their dream gig fairly quickly in this environment, and that includes pilots that would have flowed in very short order. Heck, there are rumors of pilots that have flowed, collected 100K, then take CJOs at other carriers not long after.

As to your characterization of AAs attitudes towards regional life compared to DAL and UAL, spot on. They’ll be the last to make the strategic shift, long after A220 delivery slots have dried up. Maybe they can get those old 190s back…..


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What is the average years of service to hit 50% mark as a NB FO in DFW or CLT?

been here 14 years between us airways and American and have not experienced anywhere near the negativity seen on here. You guys sound like lots of fun to fly with, this ain’t a difficult job. And flying the line is much nicer than flying with a check airmen, you seem to have things backwards

Too lazy to look it up. I'm around 85% in Charlotte. 2.5 years, roughly.

No doubt about flying with line guys, that checks with the fact that a CKA may not tell it how it is. It should be no surprise that guys are more negative online than in person

Most pilots here are great to fly with IMO. Sure we have our 5%’s and the dreaded 1%’s, but that’s everywhere. The job will be what you make it, not sure what you mean about Check Airman not telling you how it is, as opposed to line pilots? there are 13,000 different pilot opinions of how it is, do you need to be fed your opinion by other pilots? Best thing is to do your job, enjoy your layovers, and give zero ****s about other pilots opinions.

Exactly thank you for supporting my point sanicom. My CKA’s actually haven’t said anything about AA we have been busy but people in the “real world” have expressed it’s a great place to work.

How long is short call reserve call out?

This is correct. I talk to military pilots contemplating AA and hear things about our “toxic culture”. I have to explain that the term doesn’t apply to working with other crew, gate agents, rampers etc, but is a term used to describe the relationship between the union and management. We are in negotiations for a contract, no one is going to say how great management is right now, nor should they. As a day to day job, it’s great gig, and even better if you happen to like living in one of our domiciles. I commute and love this job, I’d love the job at every other major though too, I’m sure.

I’ve found it works wonders by chatting with the gate agent for a minute about their day and walking to the back of the plane and introducing yourself to the flight attendants.

A "reasonable amount" of time. Most interpret this to 3 hrs or less.

Agreed, vast majority are great, never said anything about that. I’m saying a CKA is not going to sit there and rag on the company for four days like some line guys do. That’s the opposite of their job.

The majority of guys I fly with complain about this company. The majority of FOs I talk to do as well (must have something to do with the fact we’re the only ones who furloughed). There’s like 6 different pilot groups within the company, many of which don’t like certain other groups. That’s all I’m saying

Is that right that AA doesn’t have a day by day guarantee? For example, day 1 credit 8 hours and day 2 credit 3 hours = 11 hours credit. Since that’s over your average day guarantee of 5-something(?) you don’t get any extra for day 2?

Not quite sure what other majors have but it just surprised me.

It’s the exact same average calendar day pay that delta and United have except we also have a sit rig that they don’t. I think SWA has minimum day pay.

that is correct for the most part....we have a min AVG credit of 5:15 a day for the duration of the trip...ie. the min a trip with 3 duty periods would pay is 15:45...however we do have a min DAY credit of 2hrs...example day 1 is 8hrs, day 2 is 7hrs, day 3 is 1.5hrs. In this case the trip would pay 17hrs(8+7+2).....we also have a TAFB rig that we call F pay which I don't know what it is off the top of my head(and ya I should know) and we have a sit pay that is 2 to 1 for every sit SCHEDULED over 2 hours..ie. 3 hr sits pay an extra 30mins....I personally think the 5:15 is better than what we had a few years ago which was, nothing.

Ok thanks. I didn’t realize that was on par with United and Delta. Maybe it’s just the regional standard to have a min day pay of 4 hours or more.

So, looking at the class drops, for someone who wants to get on the Bus, what are the Pros and Cons of LAX vs LGA as a new hire who’d be commuting?

I know that LGA means you’re covering JFK/LGA/EWR, and LAX I believe is LAX/SNA/SAN?

Ultimate goal is getting back to CLT, but my gut instinct is doing some West Coast / HI flying to start could be fun.


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I haven’t been based in LAX so take what I say with a grain of salt…. NYC really sucks. Tolls are insane, early morning ewr shows are difficult to get to from the standard commuter haunts. The flying is decent though

None of that has escaped me (the joys of being junior!), just wondering if LAX is somehow worse. Thanks.


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I think LAX bus is only LAX with some ONT. I believe 737 is where you get LAX ONT SAN SNA.

I'm guessing LAX has more redeye flying, but you're (hopefully!) not going to be waiting long for CLT so if it's something you want to try, I say go for it.

Does DCA 320 cover IAD and BWI like the 737 or just DCA? Thanks.

yes, all 3. Majority is DCA

LAX has a lot of red eyes with late starts and late finishes. Lots of trips start with a red eye. Lots of trips end with red eyes. I would try MIA as a junior base until you hold what you want.

I just read the latest class drops. With all of the hiring and retirements, any estimates on how long a new hire would be on property to be 737 ORD based?

Looks like a guy from the September class will be there in January, so it shouldn't be long at all.

If you’re on property before the December 7th vacancy deadline, or within a week of any vacancy deadline in indoc with the ability to bid, you should be able to hold almost any base (as long as your plane is based there) right away. The training is also backed up a little bit so there is a chance you maybe spend a month or less actually in a base like NYC or LAX.