No there was no "flow up" prior to Letter 3/Suppliment W.

Many regional pilots are happy where they're at and don't see themselves as inferior needing to "move up in life" to validate their careers.

Aside from official statements of unhappiness with the evolution of domestic flying away from mainline carriers, what would you suggest regional pilots legally do to change things ?

 

Like it or not, RAH bought YX and is free to do as they please. I dont like it, but if I bought a car from my neighbor, they are not going to tell me how to drive it.

 

ding ding ding....someone will come and explain how, well you fill in the blank.

at the end of the day mgmt made the decision to buy and sell the place and everyone else are just pawns in the game.

 

True and just as it always is. Both AA and TWA took over many different routes from failed or failing airlines with no complaint. Hardly anybody complains when it is happening to other pilots. The complaints only come from pilots where it is happening to them.

 

Eagle flying does more for AMR shareholders than republic flying would for AMR. Eagle is wholly owned, the money stays in house rather than making someone who flies for AA's competitors rich.

 

Not trying to be argumentative, but this is not necessarily true. While it is true that the revenue stays inside AMR, its also true that the expenses do too. Thus, if the NET of revenue over expenses is greater at REP than Eagle, it makes sense to out source.

Don't like it -- but those are the facts, from a purely accounting perspective.

 

PG, true to a point if you are not on a cost plus contract. With our historical margins over the last decade that means that the mainline balance sheet is net negative plus the profit they are paying for the FFD or Cost Plus Air Service Agreements. It could be argued that under these types of agreements AME-Eagle actually cost AMR less money than DAL's outsourcing scheme.

I had the numbers a few years ago, but the profit that DCi was getting from operating their flights was over 500 million a year. That is a lot of money.

Of course we are going away from this model, but it is going to take something to make these operators willingly give up their profits. What will it be? More jets, jets from other operations? Maybe will will just not renew these contracts when they come due, but that is a long time to be deal with this issue.

 

True. Of course the key word is "if". Since you seem to know something about accounting, you can understand how being able to control and consolidate costs can be advantageous to a corporation. When working with a feeder airline, the costs of the employees, training, maintenance, facilities, aircraft and so forth are about about the same. If the feeder airline is independent, then it's management and investors want to make a profit. Otherwise they'd do like Midwest did and sell out in order to go into another business.

Consolidating purchases of consumables, sharing gates, training facilities, management, etc. assists the bottom line. While it does involve more work to operate a second airline, the profit margin makes it worth the effort.

Don't believe me? Look at the results. If Eagle wasn't worth the effort, we'd have been gone yesterday. While it is true AMR has tried to sell us or portions of us in the past, this has more to do with Scope clause restrictions than a pure business decision. The last time AMR was close to selling Eagle it's rumored that the buyer balked at all the strings which were attached to the deal.

 

ALPA Eagle and many of your brothers and sisters would like to take the 100 seat flying, which would put 1/3 of our guys on the street with the immediate parking of Super 80s... I can't imagine you wanting to give us anything more than preferential interviews for the FO positions.

ALPA Eagle is no different than APA. Each self serving, and protecting their own members... It will not change, and many have no desire to see it change.

Many including our own and dear beloved Beagle pilot routinely criticize APA, yet ALPA (and ALPA Eagle) acts no differently.

AA

AA

 

Hear, hear!