APA Fails to Raise the Bar
 

After Delta did the heavy lifting, United stepped in and added 2 more percent. If APA can’t raise the bar even 1%, they are useless. They did not negotiate this; Delta and United did.

APA is a failure. It is time for fresh blood.

An utter and embarrassing failure.

Unfortunately, after this pusillanimous display of incompetence and impotence, DAL and UAL won't want APA in alpa. It just ain't happening.

I don’t necessarily disagree with what you guys said, but actual AA pilots can come to the conclusion that is best for us. We don’t need guys from other airlines starting negative threads on our forum, but thanks anyway…

I disagree… Our independent mindset is why we suck at negotiating contracts

They’re Monday morning quarterbacking, not trying to be constructive.

Okay, how about this then. We ALL do better when each peer is raising the bar to some degree. Each contract has its unique items which need attention/individual attention, but adding soft pay, vacation, retirement, sick, in addition to pay rates and other “goodies”. Pattern bargaining isn’t just about “me too” on pay rates & soft pay. If DL adds one good item, UA can get it and add its own good item. AA then gets them both and then adds it own goodie to the mix. In the next round, DL then continues the cycle. WN has a role here too. That’s the power of pattern bargaining. But everyone has to do their part.

Can APA not understand the frustration when other peers are doing all the hard work, and not getting any help from APA? 4 attempts to get nothing more than “me too” additions? All it would take is a penny more on the pay table, and once DL and UA use that, APA gets it on the next contract. We are scratching each others backs.

They’re angry because everyone should be getting more. You can see looking at the American agreement that pattern bargaining is a real thing. We need all three legacy carriers to participate to get the most gain. Not only is American not raising the bar, you aren’t even getting some new industry standard gains that the other two airlines have. Crew meals, extended duty pay, your sit pay start at 2:30 while theirs will start at 2 hours, sick leave, etc. Even your profit sharing isn’t pensionable (401k contributions). You managed to get their payrates exactly though to avoid triggering both snap-up clauses. This is what, you’re third or fourth agreement in principle? Yes, the other airline pilots are mad because APA is holding everyone else back.

We want the APA pilots to succeed and lead the industry. We are actually rooting for you guys, but you are failing miserably. At this point, voting it in is probably you’re best option. Maybe next negotiation you guys will contribute to the industry instead of just waiting for Delta and United to pattern bargain up to.

Nobody disagrees with you Delta guys. You’re preaching to the choir. American pilots are disgusted with APA… I really think a move to ALPA is inevitable.

Another OAL know-it-all with wrong info. Profit sharing is pensionable. Sit pay is over 2 hours “scheduled” on UAL AIP, exactly like AA current sit pay. AA new sit will be actual, which is an improvement to current book IMO. Also UAL is 1:3 DOS, AA is and remains 1:2. I prefer AA AIP sick to either of the other two. AA LTD is no question industry leading, why didn’t UAL pattern off of that and improve?

My point, this whining about pattern bargaining on pay rates is retarded. Go away. We certainly have our own **** to work out, but I still wouldn’t trade spots.

You guys showed us how it’s done. You did so great that you had to go back to the company after the United deal to ask for more. That’s how to lead the industry.

Nope, didn’t say that. Just pointed out your blatantly wrong info.

What is Delta top widebody pay on January 1st 2027? AA is $488/hr.
Who has the best LTD?
Can Delta or United pilots get two months off in a row paid. Every year. We call it IMAX.
Are you flying over 85 hours on reserve?
Can United and Delta pilots drop down to Zero hours?
Do United or Delta wide body First Officers go unqualified every three months for lack of landings? Great deal.
Are United or Delta pilots getting $200,000 for unused sick time?

There is a tremendous amount of nonsense spewed all around. Some contracts are better than others in different areas. Cherry picking certain items from a contract is easy. Unless you are actually working and living a contract you don’t know. Envy and jealousy are no good for you. I would put my career at AA up against any other airline career of a person hired the same day I was.

The entitled generation is strong amongst us. I’ll give you a trophy for your so superior contract if that makes you happier. Good Grief.

(Unpopular opinion coming in 3, 2, 1,…) While I’m thankful for the heavy lifting that Delta and United pilots did for us, I don’t want to live in a world of perpetual complaining and perpetual contract negotiate because the other guys got more.

None of us get everything we would like to see in a contract. That’s just the nature of “negotiations”. I’m okay with APA taking one more bite at the Apple but then I just want to go about quietly doing my job and living my life with the deal that I’m given. And if, by chance I find the final deal to be untenable for me, personally, I’m free to apply to Delta, United, Southwest, UPS, or anywhere else.

Four years of bittching, whining, and being urinated-off is long enough.

Now flame away!

Nailed it.

How many 18 month DAL/UAL folks were gone from home 150 hours in July and got paid 125? No sick, no vacation, just using the available tools. I’m guessing not many.

We absolutely need to use examples from other airlines for negotiating with our management. Don’t conflate that with jealousy.

Would love to know how involved these new troll accounts were in their union negotiations. I'm guessing not at all.

Yawn.

How is our sick better than UAL/DAL? AA paying up to $200K out at retirement IF you're able to build up a bank of that size?

The payout at retirement is the only thing better in our TA in regards to sick. Given the amount of 25 hour 4 days there are in the system, 2 sick calls wipe out your annual accrual pretty much and getting sick twice a year is NOT unreasonable. It's great that we got that perk, but everything else about our sick rules is punitive.

I'm a likely yes on this TA, but sorry sick is the biggest negatives on it. Even worse now that UAL got 6 hours accrual plus ESB and we are still stuck at 5 hours and calling out on the wrong trips burn the majority of our annual accrual because there is no way to stop burning sick or fly it back like UAL/DAL have the ability to do.

Whatever makes you feel better. The new AA contract is the weakest of the 3. Keep your head in the sand.

Feeling a little defensive? Look, we can nitpick around the edges for some minor things we all like better about each of our contracts. And that's fine. That will always be the case. And it misses the point entirely.

So let's be intellectually honest. Any reading of the major parts, and a lot of minor parts, of UA's, then AA's contract AIP's look strikingly similar to a DL pilot. You could almost copy/past most of the bullet points, right down to the 'retro' being 4/4/14. And that was only after AA's first AIP was so horrid it's not worth even describing. So give credit where credit is due. Alaska got off to a good start. DL raised the bar significantly. UA then raised it some more (thanks, UA). Hopefully, WN will bring the 737 rates up well above all of us to bargain against next time. AA got the vast majority of their gains this round through the work of other unions. UA and DL simply want APA to pull some meaningful weight, and are rightfully frustrated about it. That's all.

Youre really comparing one pay rate in 4 years that was specifically cherry picked not to trigger snap up as a "win"? You are the problem. And 2027 is a contract cycle away, come back in a couple years.

Delta has no cap on their LTD as well and the monies are eligible for profit sharing, AA does have no offsets.

Delta also has a max credit for reserves thats varys month to month almost never above 85hrs.

Yes at Delta you can drop to zero.

Are you kidding me about the landings? You think thats unique to AA?

Are AA pilots getting loaded with 275hrhrs of sick time per year, every year? Over a long career even using half that sick time is far more valauable than 200k. Different types of sick systems.

Before you get all righteous about misinformation, I suggest you get your own facts straight.

In 5 years or less when all the pilots with large sick banks are long retired AA mgmt will look genius for stonewalling us on sick. The way the schedules are packed and trip trading very difficult very very few will ever accrue a large bank.

We are being played.

I’ll take our sick any day. Somehow doing only 4 day trips I have accumulated over 500 hours sick time. It can be done.

Does Delta have annual cost of living adjustments to LTD? Yes it gets 401k.

stop cherry picking. This will be the best contract of my career.

See the question marks? Not facts stated. I don’t know your contract. I know mine and it’s great. 12 months pay for 10 months work. Thanks.

It's not cherry picking for me at least. It's a legit issue. If I could call in well, stop burning my sick time, go on LC, pick up open time to either recover pay or restore sick bank like UAL/DAL can, etc it would slightly help. But since you have that 500 hour bank, of course the only thing that benefits you is the payout at retirement. I am not a person that calls in sick just because I don't feel like working, or couldn't trade a trip, or angry for not being able to hold a holiday off. I call off because I am unfit to fly due to illness. I had to call out sick this year because a captain flew sick. Got me sick...... Thankfully that one was only a 2 day trip..... The real painful one was a 25 hour 4 day and I was better on Day 1. But nope had to burn all 25 hours..... I am glad you got a payout, but besides that one item, UAL/DAL have better rules for sick. And I am with you in that I think I prefer our and UAL system over Delta's use it or lose it. But UAL's system beats ours with the one exception of the payout.....

It's one of the heavy items on the no side of the scale for me. Not enough to get me to a no, but it's a huge negative to me that we couldn't rework the rules and get more accrual.

will solve absolutely nothing. Ask spirit guys how alpa did for them on the latest contract.

Or UAL with Tumi TA, or FedEx…

I’m in the “well, it can’t be any worse can it?” camp. The better/easier recall process alone make it worth a try in my mind.

APA is only this bad because of AA pilots. APA could be fixed, but AA pilots running APA chose not to.

Well if they'd quit being a thinly-veiled management internship program and focus on working for us, maybe we'd get something going.

More like 3 months off with a little effort. Around 76 hours paid each month for not turning a wheel.
Cherry pickers are out in force, but freely admit that DAL is farther into the post CHP11 and better run in terms of profitability than AA.
Remember, the guys running us ran an operation paying CA's $125/hour not long ago and decided PHL was a far better international hub than JFK.

The future will be interesting. Much of AA's high debt was due to refleeting. That is basically done. UAL and DAL have some big checks to write for jets at higher interest rates. We'll see.

You do understand that “not feeling going to work” means you’re probably not mentally fit? Which it means you can use your sick time. Sometimes we are burned out, but we choose to keep going.

Part of being a responsible person/pilot, is to identify when we need a mental break from work.

Unfit to fly does not only covers physical illness. It’s important that we stop thinking that only physical fitness is the only reason we can call sick.


FAA IMSAFE acronym, look it up if you haven’t.


Also remember this. AA/UAL profits for this quarter are based on the current contract. DAL profit are based in the new contract with new pay rates.

DAL made more money than both of the other carriers in this quarter. Also includes non contracts 4% payraise that was given in April.

And there is a big difference between burned out vs just not wanting to go to work due to bad work ethic, rather go to that event with friends, etc.

If burned out, sure perfectly understandable. I meant more along the lines of just want to blow off work because that trip was crap, it was over the weekend, etc.

Overall point is I’m not an abuser of our sick system. Which is why AA management dug in on this issue. They fear abuse.

Delta has been and will continue paying for jets with cash. Go read their 10K’s…

APA’s structure, governance and bylaws are what hampers its ability to secure ILCs. Period, dot, end of sentence. It has nothing to do with AA pilots running it, or former US, or former AW, or whoever. You could have an army of the smartest pilots in charge of fixing it but they will fall flat on their faces - and they have over the years I’ve been here - simply due to the almost autonomous and absolute power the BOD has over everybody else in the union, including the NOs. At the end of the day, we live and die by the BOD’s actions. The ONLY time APA has made gains is when the membership itself has revolted or acted on its own against its leadership. (Braniff Christmas, Sept to Remember, etc.)
When a union only makes gains when its membership revolts, you’ve got a deeply flawed union.
There is indeed one way to fix APA. Schitt can it and replace it with ALPA.
Until that happens, we will trail the industry. It’s really that simple. The ILCs happening everywhere today except APA is proof.
AA pilots have been ham strung by APA for DECADES. It’s like being in a bad marriage with no way out. If you want to fault AA pilots, fault them for not going back to ALPA a lot sooner. Unfortunately, AA pilots have been “institutionalized” by APA’s actions over the decades and part of that has become ingrained in their DNA. That’ll take a while to purge, but it is possible - through a fresh start with ALPA.

I’ll end my rant with one more example of the BOD’s antics and why this union is so broken. Last spring, the ALPA exploratory committee actually RECOMMENDED to the BOD that, in their view, the next step in exploring an ALPA merger needed to proceed, based on their extensive research. In other words, the very committee that the BOD appointed to explore a merger with ALPA recommended we take the next step. And the BOD shot down ITS OWN COMMITTEE’S RECOMMENDATIONS immediately as the panic set in that their days might be numbered. Now, what does that tell you as to the question if APA can be fixed?

No, I'm not going to do your assigned homework. I think DAL does a better job but still has to replace AC.

If you think paying cash for AC is a plan, you're dead and don't even know it.

Ask the NWA old guys about old NWA and the Checchi. Should be a good primer for all cash fleet.

Are they going to run out of annual cash before they run out of annual planes needing to be replaced? Typically in this industry, debt has been a necessary evil.

AA pilots cant drop to zero anymore since TTS is on full fledged lockdown!
AA pilots who sell back sick time for 200K are idiots. Get paid 66% vs 116%, just plain idiots
IMAX only works for a small percentage of pilots. All can do but most decline trying because of what it involves. 500 IMAX pilots out of 15K pilots. Big Fing deal.
We suck

12 month FAA flight time total, average around mid 650's for 25 years.
IMAX, almost the same time along with a 40% W2 increase.

Sure, guys like you throw out the "what it involves" line.

Pardon my ignorance, new hire here. Could you please explain this post?

There’s an imax compass guide. Read that.

okay buddy. I guess it’s just hard for you to fathom that your airline’s management and your union lag the industry. Enjoy contract 2.0 or 3.0 or 3.5 or whatever it is.

I don’t get why people are so upset about the 2.0. I’m okay with living on coattails. Its
like college. I’d rather cheat of the smart kid then spend valuable drinking time studying lol