If he is management then it’s all the more reason to engage with him. No need for mud slinging. I legitimately want to know why it’s reasonable for 50-76 seat RJ pilots at our WO carriers to make 500K plus massive bonuses, and it’s not for us?

Right on, man. Absolutely 1000% agree.

From Ed Sicher:

"By now, you’ve probably heard that our recent attempts to improve our pay and work rules over what was previously offered at the negotiating table was met with total disdain by Robert Isom and his negotiators. With respect to pay, we received a pass back from management that has been whittled down to a 10/5/3, with the 5 percent being offered at date of signing plus one, and a cap on the snap-ups of 2.5 percent that may require us to arbitrate if Delta and United ink deals that significantly exceed ours. This almost ensures that we will lag our peers in pay.And remember, this take-it-or-leave-it pay offer is being made at a time when railway workers are receiving a 14 percent pay raise, with a retro pay of 14 percent back 2.5 years, and a 24 percent pay increase over the life of their contract. Robert Isom must think that we are either completely ignorant of the profitability of our company, or so beaten down that we are willing to negotiate a contract that leaves us behind inflation at a time when we enjoy our greatest leverage.

Remember also that the 10/5/3 on the table is really a 0/0/10/5/3/0/0, since we have already worked two years without pay increases, and if history is any indicator, we may have to work for another two years after this contract has expired in order to secure future pay raises. I expect that you share my view that this is completely unacceptable.

Make no mistake about it – this contract is not only about pay. It is also about quality-of-life improvements, especially with respect to scheduling. The scheduling crisis of this past summer is simply a result of mismanagement. We can no longer tolerate an abrogation of our seniority to rescue their flailing operation. Forced productivity without contractual safeguards must be addressed in this contract. We would be remiss to pass up this opportunity to improve our scheduling rules in this Section 6, and currently there are no safeguards in the proposal that management has presented.

The Negotiating Committee recently tried to secure a guarantee of the distribution of trip lengths that would put a floor under the number of one- and two-day trips and cap the number of four- and five-day trips. Remember, this is after a summer in which they have locked us out from our ability to trade trips, in some cases for entire months. Then, they constructed narrowbody sequences primarily of four- and five-day trips bound to fall apart. That’s left us in onerous recovery obligation and made our senior lineholders into junior reserves. What was management’s response to our proposal? They gave us the hand. They won’t even entertain these protections.

I’ve relayed our message to David Seymour and Robert Isom. If they wanted to further anger our pilots over scheduling abuses, they couldn’t have done a better job! I’ve repeatedly emphasized that the integrity of the schedule will best be improved by incentives instead of force.

I recognize the fact that, at the end of the day, the Negotiating Committee gets their direction from the Board of Directors, but I also know for certain that the Board of Directors takes their direction from you, the members.

For that reason, I need you to stay focused, stay informed, and remember what you’ve earned and what you’re worth. At this critical juncture in time, we need to stay unified and stand strong on this assault on our profession and our quality of life by this hapless management team.

I will continue to take the fight to management and carry our message to Capitol Hill, to our investors, and to our sister unions who are engaged in similar struggles.

Please stay informed, remain engaged, and keep the faith.

Fly safe, and thanks for listening."

Pretty much everyone agrees that bringing regional flying in-house is a good thing.

You had this same bizarre argument a few months ago, trying to blame APA as the sole obstacle towards bringing regional flying in-house. It still doesn’t make sense- AA could merge its whole owneds tomorrow and start flowing en masse to mainline, getting them a mainline seniority number, bringing CRJs and ERJs in-house at mainline rates, having a massive vacancy bid for these new airplanes, increase their capacity beyond 76 seats, etc. They don’t need permission from APA. It’s not like AA’s incompetent management listens to APA anyway. It’s also not like AA was on board with all this but APA objected and they decided “oh well, APA doesn’t want to play, let’s outsource to Air Wisconsin instead”.

Bringing everything in-house would certainly have consequences, one of which would be essentially eliminating AA as a desireable destination for any military/OTS applicant for years. Not the end of the world, but definitely something to consider.

I’m not saying APA isn’t dysfunctional. It absolutely is. But this “if only APA worked with the regional ALPA MECs!” thing is just bizarre.

Without going into things I can’t/won’t… There was more buy-in than you may think. And it was the more cost-effective solution for AAG that would have resulted in more money for APA pilots. It was made clear to us that APA itself would be the road block and that was correct.

Ok. “I have insider knowledge but I can’t share it so you’ll just have to believe me”. Yawn.

AA hates APA and its pilots. I find it really hard to believe that AA was all about bringing the regionals in-house, but APA’s supposed objections brought it to a halt. That makes zero sense.

Uh, I mean I do. Or at least I did. I’m not in the loop anymore. It’s really no secret though if you dig through my posts if you’re really that interested. I wouldn’t be personally, but you do you.

Overall my prediction earlier this year that no legacy airline would achieve a contract before we hit a recession will likely hold true. Pilot expectations won’t align with what management can justify to their Boards, especially with the uncertainties of a recession looming. So we’ll all likely deal with making the same or less than regional pilots until we either agree to less than we deserve or don’t agree and keep negotiating until we hit more favorable conditions.

Yet they authorized insane pay rates and bonuses for their regional pilots. Crazy.

I'm guessing that none of the major pilot groups will cave. We’ve all had it up to here with our ever decreasing QOL and relative pay. If it takes years, so be it.

How is some (supposed) failure of APA leadership to jump enthusiastically at a WO merger the fault of “toxic” AA line pilots???

A - I don’t believe you.

B - There are only about 4000 LAA “toxic” pilots left at a 15,000 pilot airline.
things are changing here…

C - Why would AA need APA’s blessing to do it??

AAG is already the largest in house work force in the industry. It makes zero sense to merge the WO’s into mainline. The ramifications go beyond just pilots. Every other work group is unionized and has their own scope rules and higher expense contracts.

Yea he lost me as well.

I'm not sure what the benefit of absorbing the three WO is. I can see the benefit of merging the 3 WO.

Excargo dog? That’s you isn’t it?


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It's worse than that. Rough breakdown of hourly wages per available seats (50 seater vs narrow body, APC numbers).

AA FO
Year 1: $0.45 / seat
Year 2: $0.69 / seat
Year 3: $0.82 / seat

WO FO
Year 1: $1.8 / seat
Year 2: $1.94 / seat
Year 3: $2.1 / seat

That's our worth. Over two to three times less than a 1500h CFI (no offense to them).

It goes downhill from there, looking at captains and/or wide-bodies. To that, add the incomprehensible delayed yearly raise, and no 401k for the poor bastards who actually interviewed for the job.

Insulting, and embarrassing.

I fully anticipate working under another subpar industry trailing turd. Too many folks at this airline are willing to sandbag everyone for a quick check on their way out.

‘Username checks out……

I doubt a TA with so many shortfalls will be send out for a vote. Let's just hope the economy doesn't tank in the meantime.

There should be ZERO pay difference between WO flow and an OTS new hire.

Probably because someone a lot smarter than you crunched the numbers and realized they would make more money (i.e. the stock price would stay higher) that way.

Im pretty sure it’s AA that is against this. Once they do that they will have to do the same for WO gate agents, rampers, FA’s etc, and the costs go up. I would be for this personally, I think it’s more options for our pilots. We’d have to get the group 1 pay rates sorted and it would affect OTS hiring of military for a few years but that would sort out eventually too and we’d be like SWA with no feed and no problem hiring.

Nah. They’d hire all the ground types under Piedmont like they do now. There’d be no change there. It might even allow them to drop quite a bit of middle management.

The FAs maybe would have to be brought aboard.

Someone else before you mentioned how it would affect OTS/MIL hires. It would but: I worked in the training dept at a WO. I can 1 million % assure you that AA management could not care one bit less about quality of pilots. If they meet the minimum(pass training) they are a qualified line pilot. That’s all AA cares about, bodies. Where those bodies come from no one cares.

Legacy AA guy here. Please stop whining.

Whose group is signing up to be Check Pilots? Hint not legacy pilots, they are quitting in droves.

Snake1234 is dividing our pilots. Don’t pay attention to him.

Some people on this thread really come across as whiny. Relax. We all want a contract. Personally I could care less about the pay rates. I want quality of life.

I recently flew with a pilot that boasted of crediting 180 hrs. and 200 hrs. over the last two months and was up to 120 so far that month. He was *****ing about the contract. To each his own but he is not helping our cause. Stop whining about us old guys and consult your greedy peers. Thanks.

I have NEVER done overtime and don’t plan on it either.

This guy gets it ^^^^

Twenty five years ago, pilots flew 70-75hrs per month, made more money (relatively), then went home to their families with their brains intact. I'd take better rigs over better premium pay all day. It's time to put an end to the wh*ring era.

It's generally not a good idea to play your hand and show the minimum you are willing to accept. I find it entertaining to see all the beaten down senior folks at AA complaining about the "entitled millennials." I can't wait for the entitled youngsters to outnumber the beaten down senior contingent that just wants a few dollars more before they ride off into the sunset. The "at least I don't work for a living" crowd has been an anchor to our profession. We have historic leverage, it's time to use it.

I haven’t seen this at all. Where have you seen this? “The line” appears to be 95% against this proposal and that is mostly older pilots. What is your source?

Define “legacy.” Looks to me like it’s mostly 6-9k seniority guys that couldn’t get in the door under the old system. I’d bet there are few, if any, BTL new CKAs.

These new CKAs to me are our worst representatives right now. Clearly going against union guidance for personal enrichment. I see many justifications and excuses but fact of the matter is that if the company didn’t get those 100+ bodies as new CKAs our leverage would be through the roof. Training is an absolute disaster right now as far as scheduling goes. Imagine how it’d look with 100+ fewer CKA.

Gross.

This is the part I don’t understand. What is the benefit of being a CKA? 96 hours a month? You could fly one PM trip and be over 110 easily. The job? It’s a tough job and you’re always being stretched super thin. Nights in the DFW training hotel during your Sim month and non stop OE during your flying month. Again all for 96 hours? Its a hard pass for me even if we weren’t in contract negotiations. Work harder for less money. Brilliant!

Pretty much my point. These guys are taking a worse job, screwing everyone else in the hopes they get large improvements in the new contract. That, or they are ego maniacs. It's disgusting and there should be union consequences. I saw one guy on the internal forum claim he was heavily involved in union work but at the same time "never saw" the guidance to stay away from CKA jobs.

I'm not looking for a simple pay raise to keep up. I'm looking for a huge pay raise to try and bring this profession back to where I feel it should be. I'll be pulling the rope toward one direction and you'll be pulling it another. You can thank the people like me that came before us for pulling it upwards.

Didn’t we see what the company’s proposal was for improving the CKA job already? IIRC it was like one more day off per month (making it 13?), and a few other very insignificant improvements from what I could tell. And that’s the section the company actually has interest getting right!

These guys are in for a rude awakening. Our negotiations are going to last a lot longer than most believe. And if we go to mediation, we’re probably looking at years. All the while these new CKA are going to be run ragged for 96 hours in a constant training environment. Then when a TA is finally reached, they’re going to be very disappointed with the gains in section 12. Again it’s the one section the company wants to enhance asap and yet their last proposal included minor improvement for the CKA. Some people have to learn the hard way I guess.

The line is not an accurate representation of the pilot group. The line is a group of 50-100 of the 14,000 pilots.

I hate to say this but the longer negotiations last, the odds of getting any kind of full retro pay become more difficult to achieve, especially if you were to believe we are heading into recession. I’m a realist, I believe odds are growing for a slowdown. So if your thesis is anything close to this, then it behooves the union and management teams to come to a settlement asap. Negotiations are going to involve finding neutral ground. Employee wages going up a huge amount will likely lead to higher ticket prices and in a recession this will cause demand destruction and could put us right back into quarter after quarter of losses. If your belief is that things are rosy and profits will be sky high next year, sure, drag it out for top dollar. I’m a bit bearish right now for the near term. I want to go into this recession with a decent wage increase, I’m not sure I want to ride it out for the hopes of a grand slam. With that said, I expect 17% DOS minimum.

Agree.. personally I think 15/5/5. Retro of 3% for each year we worked under an expired JCBA. I don't think that's much to ask... especially when AA is cutting $40K annual retention checks at the 3 WO.

The problem is that your 15/5/5 is already quite the compromise and yet management isn’t even in that ball park. 10/5/3 and 2.5% cap on a snap up pending some arbitration. That’s their latest offer on pay rates and APA claims they won’t even discuss certain parts of the scheduling section (limits on 4 & 5 day pairing). We’re miles apart unless you’re willing to make major concessions to get a deal done, which I don’t think you are. Neither am I.

You, sir, are truly a classless, transparent idiot. Doesn’t take a mathematician or economist (of which you are clearly neither) to know this doesn’t come anywhere near inflation and should be a complete nonstarter.

Disclaimer…I’m a Delta guy surfing your turf here

I think we've gave enough over the years. I don't think 10% is a "raise" at all. Snap up has too many unknowns. PHL chair said United has 15% DOS on the table, three other airlines have 17/18/20%. Current "offer" is a joke!

I've said it before: let it burn. I'm in no hurry.

If your company “refuses” to discuss certain section why aren’t you in arbitration already?

I meant to say concessions on the ask in this round of negotiations. Either way I think we’re on the same page. 10/5/3 isn’t going to work. You mentioned that we’re probably heading into a tough economic period and dragging this out might back fire. You may be right but I don’t think it’s us that’s dragging this out. It’s AA. I’m willing to risk it to be quite honest. We need the right contract to move this place forward. Improving our operational integrity is a mutually shared goal by AA and APA. The company needs to realizes that incentive not coercion is how you improve schedule reliability for everyone. Including the customer. Once they figure that out maybe they’ll get serious about negotiations. Something about honey instead of vinegar? 10/5/3 won’t cut it.

Anyways hang in there. We’re already 3 years in, what’s another year or two?

Fair enough, what’s the source then? I haven’t talked to one person that thinks we should take a deal like this.

Another year or two, if you’re bearish, what would you say? I’m bullish for the US in the long term. But I think we’re going to go through a challenging period. No two recessions are identical, it’s impossible to know the depth and length of what may be coming. It won’t benefit us any way to drag this out. All in the meantime all pilots at all the legacies have taken silent pay cuts now of around 17 percent of their purchasing power. So IMO pressure needs to be cranked up to push the contracts of all the legacies over the finish line.

I would love for all the WO flying to be brought in house. After the massive staple it would be a nice boost!

the current offer is kind of a joke…the biggest slap in the face IMHO is the 2.5% cap on the snap-up provision…it’s like the company knows other airlines are going to do better and they don’t want to have to pay for it…in the same breath people that keep throwing around “inflation” numbers as a baseline for pay raises I think is a little unrealistic…if we negotiated in 2015-2018 timeframe when inflation was basically flat would we have expected raises in line with that? No, I don’t think so. Like many others have said we need QOL fixes with very strong language attached to it this time. 15/5/3 with industry leading QOL and language would be fine by me, but again I want to read the wording, not looking to see a lot of, “at the company’s discretion”, or crap like that. But that’s just me and I am only 1 vote.