Yes, I am serious. Should I not be?

I just figured if AA shifts a bunch or all of the AA Connection flying up to ORD, then guys who have been driving to work and flying out of slow, laid back, non delayed STL might be a little ticked when they have to start commuting to & flying out of ORD. Kind of ruins QOL.

No dog in the fight, & not trying to start one. I was just making an observation.

Cheers

 

Eaglefly,

No one has said it yet! Ok......... You ba*&^rds... You are taking all the flying.. It was expected sooner or later with the remaining 22 options... Now please put that 70 seater in the KORD-KROC market so I will have more options for commuting.

AA

 

Well, I was expecting it from other directions, but thank you...... the suspense was killing me !



I'll be bringing up that very topic with Arpey next week at the 19th hole. I'm going to suggest staged overnights to him to cover the last flight in and first flight out. This would also allow the crews to take full advantage of the pleasures of Dinosaur's.

 

Gosh, I bet this really shocked and ****ed off mason.

 

The net effect on total block hours doesn't matter. Quoting our contract, the company is obligated to "aggressively seek flying opportunities... including but not limited to, bidding on opportunities to provide additional feed to American Airlines". This recent announcement represents the perfect opportunity for them to increase feed, and they're not even trying. ALPA should be all over this.

 

Who woulda thunk it?


Eagle Pilots Protest Outsourcing of Jobs in Chicago | Reuters





WASHINGTON--(Business Wire)--American Eagle pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots Association, Intl.,today demanded that AMR Corporation [NYSE:AMR] halt any plans to outsourceChicago-based flying currently performed by its subsidiary, American Eagle.AMR`s announcement to shift certain Chicago flights to American Connection is"unacceptable" and violates the Eagle pilots` current collective bargainingagreement. AMR recently announced schedule changes for the Spring of 2010, including movingAmerican Connection airplanes and flight crews from St. Louis to Chicago.American Connection is the brand for flights operated by Chautauqua Airlines, anindependent contractor of regional flying. "Outsourcing our flying is not only a contract violation, but is an insult toevery American Eagle pilot and every American Eagle employee who has personallysacrificed for AMR," said Capt. Tony Gutierrez, chairman of the American Eagleunit of ALPA. Since AMR`s acquisition of TWA, Chautauqua Airlines has been providing regionalfeed to American Airlines on a limited basis in the St. Louis market. AMRdecided to drastically reduce service in and out of St. Louis and to transfersome of American Eagle`s flying to Chautauqua. "Management always said that American Connection contract flying was simply abyproduct of the TWA acquisition," said Gutierrez. "Now, instead of doing theright thing and exiting these contracts, AMR is promoting a third-party airlineat the expense of its own employees. We will do everything in our power to stopAMR from giving away our jobs." American Eagle pilots maintain that its wholly owned relationship with AmericanAirlines makes it a seamless operation for customers travelling on AmericanAirlines. "The average traveler doesn`t know that American Eagle is one of thefew remaining `wholly owned` regional airlines," said ALPA Vice Chairman DaveRyter. "American Eagle`s relationship with American has definite advantages forthe traveling public, not the least of which is the cumulative experience of ourpilots," said Ryter. Founded in 1931, ALPA is the world`s largest pilots union, representing nearly54,000 pilots at 36 airlines in the United States and Canada. Air Line Pilots Association, Intl. (ALPA)Linda Shotwell, [email protected]rDoug Baj, [email protected]opyright Business Wire 2009

 

What is on the CBA? That only AE can do AA flights in ORD? If it's because of outsourcing, Eagle has flown TSA and CHQ AMR flights as well.

 

Previously Eagle ALPA gieved the fact that 10 of our aircraft were leased to another carrier (TSA) to perform flying for AA. Our scope states that all flying performed in company aircraft in scheduled airline service be done by pilots on our senioirty list. "Company aircraft" are those owned or leased by the company and these were. "Scheduled airline service" however was flying already done by us and that apparently wasn't, but they (ALPA) argued that AMR Eagle did not "aggressively persue" this flying as per our CBA so they greived it...............and lost.

In one way this was bad (obvious), but in another way it was good.

The good part, was that in his decision to reject ALPA's argument, the arbitrator stated the reason was because this was flying not previously done by us, thus reaffirming our rights to flying currently flown by our pilots. Now, we have another carrier being brought in to directly take over some of our flying from our hubs in what appears to be a clear violation of our CBA.

I assume AMR is testing the water on this issue and this is a relatively inexpensive way to see if the bent arbitrtration system will once again reward big business with carte blanche to run roughshod over labor.

Ask most AA pilots about arbitration and you'll (rightly) get a mouthful. In deferance to the last arbitration and its award, this DOES seem like a clear violation, however, many of us are under no illusions about the NMB and who apparently butters their biscuits. Should AMR win, then they'll have a red carpet to complete their goal of just enough of our feed outsourced to prevent a strike as early as 2013 and to insure that we live on our knees in perpituity as well as those pilots brought in to fly this flying with the threat of contract termination every 4 years unless their labor costs are competitive with the other whipsaw victims.

A victory for them here will insure that ANY pilots flying AA feed will do so in domination under their terms or be disposed as well as existing under the constant threat of it between contract renewal dates.

 

I'm all for you, but doesn't this represent the mentality of every business model out there?

 

Actually, I am pretty sure there is language in the APA contract about specific flying in/out of hubs like ORD in regards to wholly owned carriers vs non owned commuter affiliates.

CHQ flying in STL was not as big an issue. The flying came as part of the TWA purchase. Moving block hours to ORD was never part of the original contract or intent of providing feed to TWA in STL. This is not a fight against the CHQ pilots, or even CHQ mgmt. It is AE ALPA vs AMR to stop an introduction of 3rd party non-AMR carriers into hubs doing AMR flying.

I know it might be a pipe dream to have all AMR flying on one seniority list, but we should at least fight for all AMR flying performed by AMR owned carriers.