Special eaglewire for september 17, 2009
Special Eaglewire - September 17, 2009

SPECIAL EAGLEWIRE FOR SEPTEMBER 17, 2009

Published Especially for the Employees of American Eagle

* * * * PLEASE POST ON ALL BULLETIN BOARDS * * * *
September 17, 2009


Eagle and Executive Employees,


Today AMR and American Airlines made a number of important announcements, including the raising of an additional $1.3 billion in cash reserves, the restructuring of AA and Eagle schedules at several key hubs, the continuation of AA's fleet renewal, and the addition of many new international flights. Finally, Eagle announced that it has signed a letter of intent with Bombardier to exercise its options to purchase 22 new CRJ-700 aircraft. The purchase of these aircraft will be fully financed. I encourage you to go to Jetnet to read AA’s press release and a letter to employees from AMR CEO Gerard Arpey.

The combination of all of these announcements is very positive for AMR, AA and American Eagle. The improvement in AMR's cash balance as a result of the financing agreements will better enable the corporation to manage through this difficult environment and focus on doing the things necessary for intermediate and long-term success. The network changes will make the AA/AE combination more competitive in our most important markets and the addition of 22 CRJ-700s will better enable Eagle to support the AA network and make Eagle a stronger company.

The new aircraft will start arriving in June of 2010 and will be delivered in a two-class configuration, resulting in Eagle's first "First Class" cabin. Starting next spring, Eagle will also commence retrofitting our existing fleet of 25 CRJs to include a first class cabin, so that our entire fleet of 47 CRJ-700s will offer premium class service.

The schedule changes announced today will impact Eagle in a number of ways. First, our schedule in Chicago will be increased, including the shifting of most of the DFW-based CRJs to Chicago starting next spring. Schedules will be increased at JFK and MIA and reduced at BOS and RDU. AA will take over some Eagle routes. Eagle will take over some AA routes and AA and Eagle will share a number of routes for the first time. Final specific schedules are still being nailed down but many of the changes will occur in April of 2010, with the remaining changes occurring over the course of the summer of 2010. More details on the schedule changes can be found on Jetnet.


We are in the process of determining the impact these changes will have on staffing requirements for each of our work groups and will be communicating on this topic as soon as we have definitive information to share.


I believe that the schedule changes which AA has directed for Eagle -- and for AA's other regional partner, Chautauqua Airlines, which AA intends to shift from STL to ORD -- will make the AA network more successful in this extremely competitive business. I am pleased that Eagle will be playing an important role in these changes to strengthen the network and to begin detailed planning for delivery of the new CRJs. I hope you share my pride in the fact that AA has confidence in our ability to respond to these requests and to operate the new schedule safely and reliably.


Today's announcements are consistent with our Plan to Win and its three major strategies of retaining AA as a customer, preparing for growth, and aligning employee interests.


Thank you for everything you do to work safely and provide outstanding service to our customers and each other.



Sincerely,


Peter M. Bowler

President and CEO

American Eagle Airlines

 

Positive news is not allowed to be posted, mods please delete this forum. I dont know anything about you guys but if you have people on the street hopefully it brings them back and if not hopefully you hire.

 

Anyone know if these will be a net gain of airframes? Or are there plans to retire 135s/140s?

 

I just finished recurrent and the usual slew of management made the rounds through. Straight from the EMB managers mouth was that we will not be parking anymore EMB's.

 

Unfortunately, this will be seen by some as more Eagle pilots stealing jobs as if THEY made this decision. It also seems odd for an airline many also believe will be disposed of due to its economic unviability.

However, before Eagle pilots start wearing pointy hats and blowing loud noisemakers, they should consider the possibility (even probability) that these aircraft will replace smaller 37-seat EMJ's resulting in little actual fleet growth.

 

There's going to be lots of upset CHQ guys who live in STL that will have to start commuting to ORD.

I can't believe they're reducing STL more. It's already such a ghost town. So sad.

 

Eaglefly,

Do you know how many seats the CRJ-700 will have in the 2 class config? Is it 66 seats?

Is this going to ruffle some feathers in DFW since some 700's are moving north?

Cheers

 

CHA in ORD? seen this played out before.

 

Translation; More mainline flying to go to Eagle.


*edited by me

 

No idea on the seats. Yes, since most of the aircraft will go to ORD, it wont be good for DFW, but what will ruffle more feathers will be the inclusion of CHQ flying in ORD and is the first shot fired by AMR to set up a multiple operator per hub system to insure whipsaw capability in the future.

It was and is inevitable. Just like AA scope, AMR will find a way to act in their own best interest and they alone will be the true winners. For pilots at AMR, AA and Eagle alike, there will only be the degree of loss to measure our futures by.