My understanding is the wording of the bill(s) is specific to "air carrier" when it comes to furlough and wage guarantees. Given we have a separate air carrier certificate to AA's, I'm curiously waiting to see just 'how' everyone applies for the aid.

 

Im not even sure, we are “Envoy Air Inc” not even “Envoy Airlines”.. as some would say, we’re a staffing agency and ground handling service.

 

My epays shows my paystub comes from Envoy Air Inc. in the top left corner, not American.

Although I do hope we are covered under this.

 

I’m not sure how specifically the law will be interpreted on this case, but PR risk for AAG is probably larger than its worth. The cost savings of furloughing a few hundred or even a thousand or two regional pilots is minimal compared to the risk of coming under fire for taking government money and then furloughing under some loophole corporate structure.

Obviously, this is just my opinion, but I doubt this is the last help AAG will need from Congress before this nightmare is over. I don’t think they want to bite the hand that feeds them right now.

 

If the grant money is going to pay all the employees until October 1, why would they even want to furlough until after that date?

 

^^ This 1000%. Couldnt have said it better

 

to pocket the money instead of blowing it out on tens of thousands of employees who aren’t doing much because there’s no demand for the seats

 

If the company was smart they would offer low paying leave time. If they offered something like AA’s 40-50 hour lines people would bid them I for one can’t afford to have no income though.

 

I don't think they could do that.

Their options are:

#1: Take the grants, use the money to keep employees mostly intact (minus voluntary cutbacks, VLOA's, etc).
Advantage: Free money to preserve capacity in case they need it later this year. Good PR.
Disadvantage: What if the grant $ is not enough to cover payroll costs for idle employees? That get's to #2...



#2: Pass on the grants, and manage their own way out it. If the grants don't cover payroll, they would be financially better off in the short-term taking no grants, and immediately taking a weed-whacker to rank-and-file labor. It still might be worth it to take the grants and pay the delta out of pocket to preserve capacity IF they think they're going to need it soon...

But if they're concerned about near-term cash bleed-out and BK, they may not be able to afford to pay ANYTHING above the grants to preserve capacity that might or might not be needed soon.

Also it's possible that the answer could be different for AA vs. the WO's... I think they are sufficiently arms-length that each operating company could make their own decision without affecting the others.

For AA, I'm sure they'll take the grant... if they're still bleeding from the arteries and about to bleed out in a few months, they'll just ask for more aid, AA is too big to liquidate. WO's don't qualify in that regard.

 

I don't think anyone read the question, they just read my answer. The question was why would they want to furlough still, and the answer is free money. I don't know if they can. Maybe, probably not. If they test it by furloughing WO regional employees to save a couple bucks (we're basically free anyway and they only have to wait until October) it'll get litigated. However unlikely it is, it wouldn't surprise me, AA likes to chase small money.

I think banking on a second bailout just for American because they are the only airline that can't make money even when times are good is pretty far out.

For my part, I'm less afraid of being furloughed from the Voy and more afraid of APA giving up scope relief to keep the music going a little while longer. No business can operate at a loss forever. Management is going to want to focus on things where they know they can make money. Like regional seat miles.

edit: made it clearer