American Eagle Flight Benefits
 

Been scouring the web for American Eagle's flight benefits but not too much can be found, other than 24 buddy passes (parents can use) and taxes on travel. Does anyone here have the inside scoop on how good/bad the pass benefits are on Eagle?

Good - 24 one way passes for parents per year
- Check in time is deciding factor on who gets called first instead of seniority

Bad - Everything costs money from your paycheck. Enjoy that trip to Aruba, but be ready to have all the taxes and international fees taken from your pay.

- It's roughly $15 per leg for short flights and up to $25 for coast to coast coach. A two leg commute will destroy you financially as the month wears on. First class is $25 on a short flight.

- Don't even consider anything out of Dallas unless it's the first out or the last one in. Even then you'll never see Las Vegas. With that said with a little work you can get anyone where they need to go one way or another.

PM me with anything else

I never had any problem getting in/out of DFW - neither have my parents or my wife - and I fly there a lot.

The 2 leg commute is definitely a financial destruction device!

The benefits are pretty good compared to some other places. My wife and I went on a Caribbean vacation and only spent about $100 - $150 flying there and back and most of it was 1st class. No complaints really except if you commute it will shrink your paycheck considerably.

But the "beer man" pretty much covered it. 24 buddy passes. Parents and Spouse (or travel partner) only for the first 24 months. Then you can add extras. After 24 months you no longer have to pay for yourself to fly.

I haven't had many problems getting out of DFW either. ORD, to get back home to DFW, maybe a different story.

You can always hop on other carriers. If I can take SWA, I will over AMR.

Just tell the gate agent you want a 1W (cockpit jumpseat pass)....no fee required. $$$ problem solved.

You can't do that. The gate agents are instructed to assign a seat in the cabin if one is available. Requesting the 1W can get your travel benefits revoked if you anger the wrong gate agent. We apparently don't have a right to the jumpseat when seats are open. Please don't ask me how I found this out or why I needed a union rep to go and talk to my chief pilot about this travel policy - just believe me and it should be in the travel book.

One more thing....

A lot of people don't know this, but my parents used to use up all of those 24 one ways. On top of those you get either 4 or 6 round trips (I forget) on American Connection. As long as you don't touch an Eagle or AA flight you can connect on them and it all counts as one leg.

Example: CID-STL-JAX is one leg and taking the same flights back would be one round trip. However if you take AA from JAX-STL on the way home it eats up one of the 24 passes.

Throw in some ID90s and you've got some busy retirees for parents. Not to mention they give more leeway on those loans from flight school.

If it is to or from work, it is a total tax deduction... in other wordsm keep good records and it's eventually.....free.

That must be a recent change... I remember it being no D3 (buddy passes) for the first 2 years... and no employee/spouse free D2's until on year five seniority...

if that is correct, it is a good change; well done Eagle !

That is not cool. Way not cool.

You're right. No free D2s until 5 years. No D3s until 2 years.

Yeah, its very uncool, especially when you almost get fired over it.
Apparently enough people complained about it and said it was a way
for pilots to fly without having to pay and it was unfair to the gate agents
and other employees who don't have access to a 1W.

The way I understood it was that we were allowed the 1W no matter what...but it has been painfully explained to me by many, many people that
my understanding was erroneous!

So if there is a seat open in coach between two giant ladies with cankles with muffin tops violating your personal space or the jumpseat - guess which one you are supposed to get!

Some gate agents don't give a damn and will just give you the 1W...but I've noticed a number of them are worried about doing so because they can get in trouble for it. Even asking for the 1W, I was told, is a violation of the policy.

Of course you will occasionally run into the flight crew that wants you to sit up front with them, or a flight attendant that will put you up in 1st - but you're supposed to pay for whatever seat was open in the cabin. Sucks yes, worth fighting for - NO! NO! NO! Believe me a hundred times NO!

If you're on your own metal you should have the option of flying on your Captain's jumpseat with his approval end of story. No fee necessary. If you don't start re-negotiating.

My wife and I have had only one flight we didn't get on traveling out of DFW. We travel literally every month(my way for paying her back for supporting my broke ass). The one flight we didn't get on wasn't a huge issue as we flew out the next morning. The price we pay is small compared to the benefits (especially concerning boarding priority!) we get.

I avoid flying on AA/AE like the plague. I haven't D-2ed in over a year and a half and my parents have used 1 pass in 3 years. ID-90s or ZEDs on Alaska, United, Virgin, Skywest, Southwest, and Horizon work much better for me. If Eagle or AA is your only choice I really feel bad for you. I refuse to give the company any more of my money.

1. It would have to be a tax credit for it to be "free"

2. Travel to and from your PRIMARY job are not tax deductible.

As an airport agent at BNA I can attest to the fact that the 1W only becomes available if the back is full. SABRE will not allow us to give the 1W unless all the seats in back are given out...the only way I know around this is to go into the seat map and "block" all the open seats as if they were inop and then give 1W and unblock the blocked seats. I have no problem doing that unless the CA has an issue with it. I have never been instructed not to do it so until then I will be happy to give you the jumpseat when commuting out of Nashville.

Also on the ERJs weight can be an issue and I have been told by OPS more than once that the jumpseat would take us over limits even more so now that people are not checking as many bags thus keeping the C.G. more forward. If I run into this situation I always go down and talk to the CA and they are useually able to work the numbers around to make it happen.

We have alot of pilots out of BNA for some reason (I guess alot of them are left over from the "Hub Days") and I always do whatever I can to get them to work. I just wish AA would start charging for revenue standbys. It never fails that we will get pax buying seats on the last flight to ORD and showing up at the airport at 6am wanting to go early....they know that we don't charge and that the last flight is the cheapest.

Hmmm because ZEDs are cheaper than D2s?:confused:

I will agree on Southwest. My wife and I list Vegas as our home away from home. US Airways/Southwest are a breeze to catch a ride on (j/s for me, ZED for her).

Well, they can't jumpseat on other airlines for free either.... so, them comparing themselves to you is not a valid comparison. Shame on your unions for allowing them to charge you to ride your own airline.

Wrong. Doesn't matter... Tax credit, tax deduction.... however you want to call it. I'll stick with tax deduction since it is what the IRS calls it. Anyway, You total your costs for air travel to/from work and it gets written off (deducted) your taxes at the end of the year... end result; free.

Sorry, you're wrong again...
IRS Publication 463 clearly says on page 5 in the table of deductions that airfare to/from work is deductable... and since the IRS is using the word deductable, again... I'll stick with it, instead of calling it a tax credit.

www.irs.gov and type "pub 463" in the search window. Page 5 in the table.
also allows taxi fare deductions, and parking lot fee's... some restrictions on those last two, so read it first.

Have Eagle's travel benefits changed at all since the last post? Is it still:

Pay to non-rev on AA in a passenger seat ($15 for "short flights")?

It makes it harder to justify commuting when you get charged for it, but I assume people still do?

What about non-reving on Eagle itself? I'd sure as hell hope that's free for Eagle pilots.

Yes, you pay to non-rev on both AA and Eagle. A lot of people complain but talk to anyone at skywest and asa and they will tell you the same thing...they pay to sit in the back also.

What hasn't been mentioned is how great AA/AE's standby travel priority is compared to all the other majors. It's based only on check in time, not seniority. I really like the system. I have friends all around the industry and I can confidently say our non-rev system is as good as anyone else's.

ASA and skywest pilots do not pay to ride in the back AFAIK. They don't get charged to get to/from work either. Really that seems to be the only drawback to AE benefits. God forbid you have a two leg commute but that's just stupid anyway. Thanks for the info.

its immediate unlimited travel for you, wife and kids. You do get jumpseat even if seats are open in back and no, its not ilegal. (it used to be like that but the rule changed a few years ago)

Domestic travel becomes free after 5 years with company for you, wife and kids.

24 one ways per calendar year for 12 people of your choosing. (parents use that 24 one way bank but they travel under same employee priority and fee )

401k company match after 1st year

Health, vision and dental after 1st month with company

2 weeks of paid vacation (3 weeks after 5 years) (4 weeks after 15)

Not to mention we have not succumbed to PBS yet so that 2 weeks of vacation can easily be turned in to 4 or 5 weeks off if you are a line holder.

This whole paying to get to work doesn't give me the warm fuzzies about commuting at Eagle. Can OAL pilots get a free ride with CASS? But you have to pay to ride? Not cool.

if on the jumpseat you dont pay.

I hope you don't get audited, because you are mistaken. You are confusing traveling FOR business and traveling TO your business or work. The latter (which is what airline pilot commuting entails) is NOT deductible.

Below I have posted an example from Pub 463. (your tax home is defined as your principle place of business i.e. your airline domicile)

My source is a good friend , who is a CPA and tax attorney with a masters in tax law, and he does my taxes.

Tax Home Different From Family Home

If you (and your family) do not live at your tax home (defined earlier), you cannot deduct the cost of traveling between your tax home and your family home. You also cannot deduct the cost of meals and lodging while at your tax home. See Example 1 that follows.
If you are working temporarily in the same city where you and your family live, you may be considered as traveling away from home. See Example 2, below.
Example 1.
You are a truck driver and you and your family live in Tucson. You are employed by a trucking firm that has its terminal in Phoenix. At the end of your long runs, you return to your home terminal in Phoenix and spend one night there before returning home. You cannot deduct any expenses you have for meals and lodging in Phoenix or the cost of traveling from Phoenix to Tucson. This is because Phoenix is your tax home.

Hey this is not really part of the subject but has to do with AE.
I found this comment on the Gouge for AE and caught my attention since I always heard that if you ever failed a check-ride you have to be honest, talk positively about it, say what you learned and you'll do just fine. But now somebody posted this, is it any true?

"If you've ever failed a check-ride, don't waste your time with this airline. You'll walk into Dallas, they'll ask everyone in the room if they've failed a check-ride, and if so, they'll tell you to get out. (06/23/10)"

Thanks guys

That's ludicrous if we're doing that to people! Busting a CFI ride is not all that uncommon. I hope this is not true.

The guy who posted that probably forgot his logbook or made some other stupid mistake, didn't want to admit it, and therefore needed some other excuse as to why he got the boot. Don't worry about it, they wouldn't go through the time and expense to fly you out there just to send you home over something they could've uncovered in the pre-interview screening.

That's what I thought but wanted to know other people's thoughts. I did all my flight training (Commercial AMEL and CFII with over 980 TT) abroad in my native country (Uruguay) and moved to USA where I started re-validating all the licenses and ratings. I got busted in the first check-ride here in USA (Commercial ASEL)
I trained using a foreign-based license and my original license was about to expire so I had a time limit to finish everything and take the check-ride, or I would have to fly back to Uruguay to renew it. I did very good on the ride but weather was deteriorating very rapidly so the examiner called it off for the day and rescheduled for 2 days later (one day before my Uruguayan license would expire) That day came and weather was still bad, so the examiner called earlier and told me and my CFI to get the plane and fly IFR to another airport about 35 miles away where weather was better and he also was closer to that airport.
So we flew IFR (I had the rating but not in the foreign-based license, so my CFI flew me to this airport, unknown to me)
There we resumed the check-ride, I took off and while climbing to my usual altitude for maneuvering he asked me to level off and tells me the ride was failed. I was about to get into B airspace:eek:
There he told me I could get an American medical certificate and could keep using the foreign-based license... bummer:(
So I got the medical and took the ride a couple weeks later and passed it with no problem.

What can I say, believe me I learned a lot from this experience, nothing similar to this will ever ever happen to me again.

But now I feel like I ruined my whole career and now will never get a job ever:confused:

Nah you haven't ruined your career. So you made a mistake, who hasn't? Like you said before, disclose it when they ask, and during the interview when it comes up just give them a brief summary of what you said here.

Their main concern is that you are capable of making it through initial training. These days they may have more of an eye out for patterns of failed checkrides, especially since the Colgan crash, but one isolated event shouldn't be a deal breaker.

Do they charge other airline employees (cass) the same fee for a ride?

Thanks, I hope you are right... I'll see what happens when I get the chance to interview, I'll just be honest without making up excuses, I'll just accept that I made a mistake and hope for the best...

My friend you couldn't be more wrong... I was shown the door today 20 minutes after arriving. Almost twenty years ago, I had an accident that was disclosed on the FAA enforcement section and the AE addendum supplement. I gave details of the accident in both sections. There were no fines, penalties, enforcements or violations issued by the FAA,,, so that portion of the application was "NO". I am not sure if the HR person understood that an accident can happen without a violation. Regardless, I was sent home very quickly. Did, I mention the accident happened twenty years ago?? Twenty years of safe flying afterward, typed in the CRJ, AMR fueler in high school (fueling MD-80's and DC10's) A&P mechanical experience on heavy turbine aircraft in addition to being a licensed dispatcher didn't mean anything. My point is that they can send you home for any reason and don't expect to be treated with any type of decency. If you have a failed checkride, accident or anything for that matter, you may want to avoid AE for a while,,, If you have any type of blemish and you get called, you will be wasting over a hundred dollars on the Candlewood suites and meals.

That's harsh man I'm sorry to hear that. Some of the things this company does defy all logic and reason, ESPECIALLY on the administrative level. I would consider it a miracle if they would actually get my d@mn paycheck correct for once...

They may have seen you as being overqualified and likely to jump ship sooner than they would like, who knows?

I definitely do not consider myself overqualified.... I believe this was actually a case of sloppy HR work coupled with a disregard for people.
Also, I had no intention of jumping ship later... I thought it would be cool to finish my flying career with essentially the same company that started my 121 career. I was wrong.

That's true, I like the way you think!

even more foolish is that he signed with a blue ink instead of black after being instructed.