Does AA have the ability to handle the impending mass amount of training: upgrade, aircraft swaps, new hire?


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Thanks to all who replied. I see that AA allows you to book a jumpseat in advance. I understand that UAL does not, but does anyone have any good advice/lessons learned about commuting on UAL?

Commuting on UAL..have a backup plan, or two. When you get to the gate area you can look around for pilots and try and figure out if anyone around is senior to you but inevitably someone will eventually stroll up at the last minute and take the jumpseat you thought you had.

UA is the least predictable commute option, they seem to overbook more than most.

Keep in mind a large chunk of AA's pilot group will eventually be made up of guys/gals who didn't have to work as hard to get there as their counterparts at UAL and DL. Plus out of those "flowing thru" from the regionals, a good number are otherwise not competitive for employment at a legacy carrier. My money is on AA management knowing this and will fully exploit it to their advantage come negotiation time. It's all part of the plan.

Those "non competitive" guys and gals have a boatload more 121 and company experience than new hires at UAL and DAL.

The Eagle guys know parkers game. They will fight. .mil guys are known to bend over in the spirit of "accomplishing the mission". I'd take an eagle guy every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I won't argue with you on the experience part. I get that, but experience alone doesn't mean one is competitive. Granted this is anecdotal, about half of the guys I know over at the WOs either have no degree, multiple training failures, or some sort of run in with the law. They're not bad people by any means (most are stand up guys) but they aren't exactly first choice cream of the crop for the HR run legacy hiring teams either. It is what it is.

As far as your other comment, AA will have a pretty big group of the "it's better than my regional" crowd much like the LCCs are getting. Take that with a grain of salt but I'm not wrong.

The .mil guys will tend to bend over out of the gate... but they learn very quickly, are very good at teamwork, and can be pretty aggressive. Frankly I've seen more apathy in general from civilians... many who *should* know better.

I left UAL in training for AA. I am going to be a commuter so factored in my decision. The commuter clause at AA v UAL, the ability to reserve the jumpseat at AA, and the commute options for ME were better at AA. Plus I was just not that impressed with UAL during hiring and their indoc. Kinda blah. AA does it right and that swayed my decision. Does UAL have a better contract? Yes, but thats right now and a lot of that crap is just fluff. Drycleaning, middle seat DH pay, etc didnt really matter that much to me. When I got hired about 15 months ago AA was going to retire close to 55% of the list in 9 yrs. UAL was about 30%. The bases at AA are way better, a lot more junior options for people to choose. No airport standby for AA.

I have been sitting in the jumpseat on UAL when a more senior UAL guy has kicked me off because he showed up with 11 minutes to push. Totally wrong but whatever.

The seniority progression has been outstanding at AA and the ability to drop.swap my schedule has been great from day 1. I did one day of short call in NY, 1 DAY. I have had a line every since. At UAL I would have been on reserve in EWR for awhile. I am about 40% in NY but could go to any base but CLT. Couldnt have done that at UAL.

Yes the balance sheet sucks. If I was younger I would have stayed at UAL but I am upper half of 40;s so for me I am not too worried. If I was 30 it might have been a different decision.

Plus no damn hat.

Wow, that's still a thing?

Oh man, some day we'll get rid of that goofy hat!