Another sub par quarterly report
 

Another quarter getting spanked by the competition. Made money but $750 million or so less than the Delta and United. Also probably little to NO profit for the year. How long can this management keep their jobs?

Potential new hires please take note. Do Not expect profit sharing at AA.

Embarrassing.

”American on Thursday forecast a 2025 adjusted per-share loss of as much as 20 cents or earnings of as much as 80 cents, down from adjusted earnings estimates of between $1.70 to $2.70 it made in January. American, along with other airlines, pulledits 2025 financial outlook in April as carriers grappled with on-again-off-again tariffs and weaker-than-expected domestic demand.”

Going from $1.70 to $2.70 earnings to as much as 80 cents loss is a huge swing. AA as usual simply seems ruderless and without a clear objective like DL and UAL. If you can’t make money in this environment where people are packing planes (for the most part), can’t imagine how ugly it will get if people decide to pull back substantially on travel. While the AA job itself seems pretty good from many friends there, the financial uncertainty is just too great.

Rest assured that the BoD is still content and Bobby Ice will still be paid a nice bonus on par with our competitors.

Would new management truly save this place?

If that new management had a cohesive vision and the competency to implement it, absolutely yes. DAL and UAL aren't killing it financially by accident.

Even something as simple as the amount of fuel this company wastes on APU usage and 3 engine taxiing. It's unnecessary and costs this company untold millions.

United during the smisek was probably even worse and look how quickly they turned it around. Delta in the mid to early 2000s was run into the ground by Mullins and by 2008 they were already turning it around.

What an awkward CNBC interview. Isom seems so tense

Totally agree. I watched an 319 waiting for a gate for 45 minutes. It was waiting to be guided in. It was the plane that I was to take out. It was all lined up for about 10 feet short of guidance line with no turns required. I remarked to the FO that both engines still running. He remarked APU too. 45 minutes later still burning all three motors.

On top of leadership issues are culture problems. The sheer magnitude of I don’t give a crap is crippling. For me it doesn’t really matter. I don’t need the job other than benefits and money to buy more crap to play with. It’s a pride thing.
I hope it turns around but future pilots be forewarned that it is a very frustrating place to work. Until you have enough cash in the bank then be very wary of the AA way.

All airlines suck. We just suck more. I will not buy tickets on AA because I know it will be a mistake. I have 150K+ miles on Delta. Even at a 20% discount I avoid us.

It’s all employee groups with culture problems. I recently A3 home from training. Made it to airport for earlier flight.. Mayhem at gate of course. Agent gives me a middle seat in back of plane. Chatted with Captain and Delta Pilot while waiting. Delta Pilot gets more room coach seat and an isle. He offered to swap with me. He just could not believe the agent could or would do this. I let him keep his seat and told him she probably hates Pilots. Up until recently it was not a positive space ticket home from training. I have waited for multiple flights home in the past. The AA way.

Brutal reading these posts. Systemic culture issues can absolutely cripple a work group….probably reflects on quarterly rev as well.

Would a swap to ALPA help the culture/contract problem?

https://simpleflying.com/american-ai...2xLgKLxRRoXldA

Hey at least your regional operation is growing!

Found the guy who shuts down the APU when it's 100° outside

I was PS home from CQ the very early stages of COVID - March 20 maybe. Trying to DH from CLT on an earlier flight. At the gate trying to list. Waited about :10 for the two agents to finish their personal convo and even acknowledge I was standing there. I was gonna request an empty row/area - plane wasn’t even 1/4 full - but got the vibe to just be quiet and not to push my luck. I mean it’s almost empty, it’s COVID, we’ll be spread out right? Freaking in the middle seat of a full row of 3; almost empty plane. Both passengers looked at me like WTF!?! I was a regional guy at the time, but come on. You really have to try to provide such $hitty customer service.

Shutting down a motor and saving 600 lbs/45 mins/$2.50/gal is around $170 saved in fuel alone. Probably over $200 when you involve maintenance.

Plus APU runs the packs better. No excuse, just pure laziness.

Well I hope he meant the fact that they burned probably close to 1500 lb of fuel just waiting to be parked than holding the companies water by shutting down the APU on a 45 minute turn......

I was PS about 6 round trips between DFW and PHX during my upgrade this spring and flew in first class the majority of the time and always exit row seats the rest. No issues with gate agents or flight attendants. Perhaps your RBF was the issue from your experience 5 years ago?

No previous airline I worked at had any trouble single-engine taxiing and massive debates of APU usage like this place does. And one of them was a 737 operator based somewhere with snow and slick ramps... I don't get it.

Just my opinion, but I don't really see United/Delta pilots complaining about single-engine taxi or APUs/hot airplanes at the gate either. But this argument goes back to the common thought process that "this management is inept and our fuel savings won't mean anything anyway" which I understand that frustration too.

The Delter boys are over on their forum every day bullying each other over using or not using the APU. And wearing their hats.

But the money saved from that is spit in the ocean. We aren't losing money because knuckleheads think they'll stick it to the man by running 3 on a parking delay. It's because our incompetent management team has no plan and our product sucks so we can't charge a premium. And we don't have a lucrative credit card despite their exhausting PA announcements. It's a well known fact that Delta and United make more off the credit card than they do from selling tickets.

I understand being frustrated with management, but burning this place to the ground will hurt us, not management. Their subpar leadership and inability to focus on morale is abundantly clear to everyone.

Our culture sucks. Half of our pilots don't care about saving gas or helping customers. The guy sitting 10 feet from the gate probably did not bother calling operations. I can hear it now "Not worth calling ops, they should know we're here. It's not our job to tell them we're here". Or the other common one "I'm not going to single engine taxi if we're just going to be waiting for a gate anyway."

How does that make any sense? Things aren't perfect so let's make them worse? Absolute morons. Don't complain if you're going to be a part of the problem. We are adults, management isn't going to hand us every fix to every little problem on a silver platter.

We need new leadership for new STRATEGY. But to fix the culture, it's going to take frontline people giving a damn.

Yeah we love our regional flying here. If we could take E175s to Europe/Asia, we'd be doing it.. but I actually just heard some small Midwest ville needs 4 new daily flights so, we should do that instead.

are you lga based by chance??

Used to be. CLT now. Driving to work > profit sharing.

This is because the seat assignment process is automated if you properly import the PNR on travelnet and check in. Cutting the gate agent out of the loop has dramatically improved deadheading.

Are all gate agents anti-pilot? No, I've received some very nice service when non-revving. I've of course found some real duds as well.

Is single engine taxi to the gate going to save the airline from incompetent management? No, but it wouldn't hurt. Hopefully as the bitter old guard retires this behavior will change. However it's entirely possible that during the next downturn management creates an entire new generation of bitter captains and perpetuates the cycle. We'll see.

Not sure what RBF is - not at AA. And I didn’t mean to imply that that one experience is the norm; it certainly isn’t. Only meant that I firmly believe that level of IDGAF has an effect on the bottom line. It comes from every workgroup at every airline - very rarely, thankfully. But the few times I’ve experienced it, it really is frustrating. Not so much on a personal level, but more in the aspect that that’s what our customers experience.

The IDGAF attitude really drags us all down. It's not just the "old guard" either. Half our flight attendants have a freaky level of comfort being unprofessional in front of passengers. Half our gate agents seem annoyed when approached by customers to ask a simple question. And don't even get me started about pilots bragging about how bad the airline is over the PA. We all need to step up and stop accepting this kind of behavior as normal.

No.
American has a sickness.

As Robert said, we are heavily weighted on domestic capacity. Domestic capacity has been weak year to date for the entire industry. We’re lucky to be profiting $750 million this quarter with the current management “strategy”—nobody has better domestic CASM numbers than American though! Hey, without being the best at making money domestically we’d be f*cked.

86% of DAL/UAL profits originated from premium/international travel. American has spent years retreating from capturing that market share.

Reading that crap about APU usage is hilarious though. Yeah, that’s why our profits are lower than the competition…

Here we go with your BS again. I’ve been here long enough and flown around the system enough to know how full of sh*t you are with this hypothesis.

we need new management. Simple.

I volunteer

Completely agree. That negative culture nonsense is 180 degrees out from my experience in both seats. Of course there are exceptions.

I think he meant RBF=Resting B**** Face

yes. This is the problem. It goes back to their decision to retire the 767 and A-330. They don’t have the lift to capitalize on where the money is. They bet… and bet wrong.

What did the jumpseat and professional standards committees say when you submitted your debrief? They’ll at least force the agent’s supervisor to educate the agent. There are rumors that a DFW agent was fired for repeatedly violating the pilot’s (and FA’s) contract for various deadheading violations (improperly running the priority list, not allowing pre boarding, making stuff up about deadheading in uniform, etc). You did the debrief, right?

We’ve been positive space to/from training for at least a decade. How “recently” are you talking about?

Oh, ha ha. Well, no; no RBF. That doesn’t get you far with a mainline agent. Doesn’t get you far anywhere, obviously. Our interaction wasn’t contentious at all. I was just very surprised when she loaded up a row in an extremely empty plane.

Then why are our customer satisfaction scores so much lower than Delta and United?

Why are people paying more to fly on them on the same routes than they are to fly on us? Same seat, same airplane type, same route, and yet we still can’t charge as much.

Nobody takes responsibility around here. It’s all about blaming someone else. Management does it, employees do it. It’s sad

Things will never change as long as nobody takes accountability for the things they can control

Probably the experience. CSA, App, IFE, Crew, On-time performance, etc.

We absolutely have an impact on crew & on time performance. The same people shutting off APUs in 100° heat or sitting 10 feet from the gate refusing to call ops for wing walkers, are the ones *****ing about how poorly the company treats customers.

You can either do your part and demand better from the rest of the company, or keep up the miserable IDGAF attitude. But not both.

No debrief. Why bother? I just roll my eyes and take the hurt. When you have been here as long as me you just give up. I have been left behind two times recently for weight restrictions. One to work and one to home. One Captain was clueless and the other just was a jerk. Both 737. Nothing surprises me. The negotiating team really effed up the new weight restriction wording. It’s confusing. I just call dispatch and say fill it up. I will figure it out.

The getting bumped was 10 years ago I’m still mad. Finished training at 11am. First flight cancelled. Second flight check airman bumped me with seniority. Last flight of night is weight restricted. I talk to the Captain and hint that the weather is good at destination. No help. Call Chief pilot on duty to see if he can get me on. No. Made it on due to miss connects. Only took me 13 hours to make it home. Per diem baby.

No one is shutting off APUs in 100° heat.

BTW I've gotten on more than one Delta jet with either an inop APU and almost no ground air cooling or inadequate ground air and the APU was turned on 10 mins prior to push.

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I'm pro-Isom but honestly I'm just tired of the excuses. Every quarter it's some reason for massively underperforming. UA dropped $2b in cash on new jets last quarter. No financing. Insane.

AA is a follower not a leader. Well, post merger. Pre-merger, they definitely were setting AA up for higher end experience. IFE, color coordinated (and premium) uniforms and cabin interiors, 321T experience, better meals, etc. Turns out, the previous management was actually ahead of the eight ball. Who knew.

It seems our business plan is "just do enough to not be too terrible".

UA went from Dr Dao and breaking guitars to a juggernaut seemingly overnight.

Tom Horton should have won.
Nothing good has ever come out of America West. It's an airline that should have folded in the 90s