Letting Eagle walk all over American Pilots
 

Just wanted to highlight an item to anyone considering coming to AA. American Eagle regional wholly owned pilots have the same non rev (D2) priority as mainline AA pilots. Everything is priority by time of check in. We have priority for the jumpseat on our own aircraft of course, but a PSA/Piedmont/Envoy pilot or employee can beat a 35+ year AA captain for a non rev (D2) seat in the back on their own metal! This would be laughable to Delta pilots who protect their own. Delta Connection pilots do not receive any benefit to this level, not to mention they also never receive profit sharing. I find that AA/APA has a total push over attitude towards fighting for their own pilot group. This is not an attack on the regional folks, just an observation that we readily allow our benefits to be diluted compared to other legacy pilot groups.

I think I can speak for most AA pilots when I say this is a non-issue.

True but misleading. EVERYONE on AA is time of checkin. A 4th day mainline toilet cleaner can beat a 78th year A&P because it's time of checkin for everyone.

And AA treats mainline and wholly owned as one employee group - pilots, FA's rampers, dispatchers, whatever. This isn't some special vendetta against mainline pilots.

If it went down as you said, and you, or whoever you're referring to, was looking for a seat in the back, whether they're an Eagle employee, or mainline doesnt matter. If it's an Eagle flight, and you have a Mainline employee and an Eagle employee list as the same priority, whoever checked in first is going to get the seat in the back. The only way that somebody with a lesser priority status listing than you referred to would be if it's a contract regional carrier (Republic or SkyWest), at which time, I think their employees would get cabin priority over AA or Eagle employees, regardless of priority list status.

If you're referring to a jumpseat situation, the Eagle pilots have to get some type of advantage on Eagle flights, similarly to how we can reserve the jumpseat. You get a PSA flight and it's a Mainline pilot and an Envoy or Piedmont pilot trying to get the jumpseat, the Envoy or Piedmont pilots are going to get the priority because it's an Eagle operated flight. This only applies to flights operated by PSA, Piedmont, or Envoy. Eagle isn't "walking over" anybody. That's a bone that got thrown their way a long time ago, and rightfully so.

Who cares.

Out of the 1000 things I GAS about with respect to this job, I’d put this at about #987.

If me and/or my family really need to be somewhere we make more than enough money to buy tickets.

Any pilot who choses an airline based on
non-rev benefits is a fool, plain and simple.

Truly we have a battered wife syndrome or something here. Hey, buddy, they arent your company. You probably flowed I know, but do you understand that? And they can beat you for a seat on your own metal.

You have a guaranteed jumpseat my man.

Absolute push over. “Who cares”. This is literally my point. Its just pathetic

I have never heard of this being an issue. You’re making it sound like it happens on the regular.

Maybe you should head over to delta with that mindset? You’d fit in great over there. Then you can stomp on the lowly RJ pilots and squash them like roaches to your heart’s content.

Consensus seems to be pretty clear what the pathetic part of this conversation is.

This is actually a perfect reply as youre highlighting the issue I’m wanting to make people aware of. We take care of ALPA represented regional pilots before ourselves. Eagle can bump mainline pilots AND they get profit sharing checks and alot of guys like yourself think you have some moral superiority, but youre actually just being taken advantage of.

Buddy this is what the jumpseat is for. Clearly you haven't been here very long if this is what you consider a high-priority issue. You have the ability to book what is essentially a confirmed seat 8 days in advance. This is hugely better than DL's or UA's systems.

AA mainline pilots can beat Eagle pilots on Eagle metal for a seat in the back too FYI. I doubt commuters from Eagle-served cities will want to give that up.

In other words, our system is not worse, it's just different. Scratch that - our system is better just about any way you look at it. Why don't you focus on one of the million things that actually need to be changed instead of wasting time talking about a complete non-issue.

+1 for this. Buddy should apply to Delta, they're hiring. Over there he can take pride in distinguishing himself from lowly RJ pilots who aren't real employees.

Nobody is ‘bumping’ anyone you friggin’ knob. You can check in 24h prior and see the standby list. Nobody can come in ar the last second and ‘bump’ you from a seat.

Let me guess, and I'm taking a stab at it... you're one of the many pilots that got a call from a chief asking about a commuter miss... you, however, have had many commuter misses, and you're most recent one came because you were bumped by an Eagle employee. If you'd taken the time to read the Non-Rev Travel Guide, that's right there in PDF format for all of us to read, you would've known what Eagle employees can get priority over Mainline pilots.

What you consider getting walked over by Eagle, and battered wife syndromes, the rest of us probably consider "picking our battles".

Hey bud, THEY ARENT EMPLOYEES OF AMERICAN AIRLINES.

“Bump” was the wrong word.
But they (Eagle) have a higher priority if they check in before an AA pilot on an AA airplane right?

Tell me you’re entitled without telling me. 3,2,1…

Haaaaa ok troll. So would you prefer they separate Eagle-generated profit from Mainline-generated profit, and split up profit sharing that way? You're making yourself look like an absolute clown right now. Every good pilot knows when it's time to quit while you're behind.

About the only thing that needs fixing really is a PSA pilot being able to bump an AA pilot off the jumpseat of an Envoy operated flight.

Not for the jumpseat. Why didn't you reserve the jumpseat 8 days earlier? Your poor planning is not anyone else's fault.

Now this is true. But still low priority next to the 1000+ real problems we need fixed ASAP.

What i want the readers to take from this thread is that I and other AA pilots have lost rides home to regional pilots for seats on our own metal due to it all being based on time of check in and Eagle pilots get the same priority outside of the jumpseat. And alot of my fellow pilots just say, “eh who cares”. Talk to your friends at Delta and ask if they would ever lose a seat to a Connection pilot. The AA pilot group is toothless when it comes to stuff like this.

You're forgetting the flip side, you can bump a regional pilot off their metal by checking in first.

How have you lost a ride home to a regional pilots on mainline metal if you have the ability to reserve a Jumpseat over a week in advance?

Even if you don't reserve it, you still get the mainline jumpseat over any regional pilot.

Clearly you're new here. Talk to your APA mentor and have them walk you through how reserving jumpseats works.

Not if the jumpseats are taken. I dont make it home and a person whos not even an employee of AA goes home on an AA flight.

You ok man? You seem like you have other personal issues that you need to sort out.

As a mainline pilot, I prefer this over seniority. Just gotta be quicker on the check-in gramps.

also you realize Eagle checkpilots
make more than mainline WB pilots? Soo just let it go and buy your FO beers

I also prefer check-in time over seniority. Most pilots who understand how the system works do.

You could’ve hopped the unwashed D2’s with a D1. Gotta hold onto those as a commuter.

Check in faster bud. When I was at Envoy I had way more AA guys and gals in my JS going home than any Eagle carrier and I never once had an AA pilot bumped off for an Eagle pilot. And I knew because I was that guy that was religious about checking the G/PALL before push, no jumpseater left behind. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but it is not common at all.

You can either set an alarm and check in on time and give yourself a fighting chance at getting a seat, or have some last minute 45 years at the company gate agent’s teenage kid take your seat, and there’s nothing you can do about that. I’d rather have some say in my destiny…..Leaving AA’s system for a seniority based system sucks dude, you really don’t know how good you have it until you lose it. Lighten up man

Again true but exquisitely misleading. You can also lose seats to the son of a mainline ramper who was hired two weeks ago.

And in almost every case you will lose out to D2T's who checked in 20 hours after you.

I can see your doll has a bad booboo , but the Eagle pilots aren't the ones who hurt you.

Okay question from an outsider who’s used to seniority-based nonrev benefits:

What happens when your intended flight fills up and you have to switch to a different flight last minute, and then you’re clear at the bottom of the standby list? Sure, a 24-hour check-in system sounds great but in my experience of nonrevving, seat availability changes drastically within the last 24 hours until departure. So when you check in the day before the flight and are #1 with 15 seats open, but then the next day you wake up and it’s now oversold. So you’re stuck finding a backup plan, but now you’re dead last on every standby list that day because everyone’s already checked in 24 hours prior.

The seniority-based system can suck when ultra seniors list last minute and bump everyone, but I’m not sure that’s worse than automatically being behind everyone else when Plan A falls through and you have to change plans the day of travel. I’m assuming you aren’t allowed to check in on multiple itineraries at once so that you’re locked in for plans A, B, C and D?

Seniority vs time of checkin is a big topic but the pilot union has no control over it.

there are ways to roll your time of checkin to a new itinerary. And my recollection is that you can checkin to multiple flights simultaneously

That's probably because there are way more AA pilots than eagle pilots, also don't eagle pilots get like 4x positive space commutes a month?


Hard to check in if you are flying the airplane.

You aren’t at the bottom of the list unless you change your city pair.

Your listing rolls to the next flight and your original time of check-in is preserved. IE you will be ahead of anyone else within your same pass category that is listed for the flight you were rolled to.

If you have to switch from a non-stop to a connection, you will get a T (transfer) designation on your listing which also places you above any non-revs who are originating from your layover, regardless of check-in time.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a transparent system with few surprises. I would be adamantly against a seniority-based system, especially when our employee group has a cap on longevity that doesn’t exist in other groups.

If you don't get a seat, you can "roll over" to the next flight with your original check-in time preserved. It works very well. It's extremely rare for pilots to get stuck somewhere. Especially because AA pilots have an industry-leading jumpseat reservation system and rules.

To be clear for any non-AA pilots reading this...this is a complete non-issue. I've never heard anyone complain about this on the line. Of all the problems that need to be addressed, this is just such a waste of time to discuss.

You can also just burn a D1 and leapfrog everyone, as well, assuming there’s no D1s already listed.

I commute from a notoriously rough place to MIA and never have any issues with “check in time”… just bid your schedule accordingly. If an eagle guy beats me to it on my own metal when I forgot to list, that’s on me. It’s fair system. What’s not fair is the AA people who list for multiple JSs at one tim and then come to find out they are listed as a D1 on an eagle flight.