Take THAT! Well played APA...

Full article:


APA: Airline’s threat has stopped chances for negotiations for the time being


By tmaxon
[email protected]
5:06 pm on September 27, 2012 | Permalink

The Allied Pilot Association board of directors, which had been scheduled to meet through mid-day Friday to discuss negotiations strategy, ended their meeting Thursday, a day early.

APA spokesman Tom Hoban said American Airlines’ threat to go to court to get a temporary restraining order against pilots “is pretty much throwing cold water on getting back to the bargaining table any time soon.”

Hoban said the union was prepared Wednesday to send its negotiators to sit down with American’s management negotiators by week’s end, following American’s request to resume talks.

“We were moving in that direction. It was only a question of specific guidance going to the negotiating committee,” he said.

But when the board and national officers received the Lynn letter late Wednesday afternoon, “that was it,” Hoban said. “It was like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat after they extended the olive branch.”

Hoban, an American Airlines pilot, said there’ll be no negotiations for the time being. The board returns for its next meeting Tuesday, the day before pilots finish voting on a strike vote.

The Lynn letter came after a couple of weeks of elevated flight cancellations and delays. American spokesman Bruce Hicks said Thursday afternoon that the carrier hadn’t heard directly from the union that it didn’t want to resume negotiations.

“If that is the case, we are extremely disappointed the APA has chosen a path that precludes reaching a consensual agreement quickly with our pilots, as that remains the company’s goal,” Hicks said. “Our formal request for APA’s assistance to end the operational disruption by some pilots is not related to our desire and mutual need to reach a consensual agreement.”

He added:

“Our operation has been significantly disrupted for more than a week, causing economic harm to the company, alienating and frustrating our customers, and negatively impacting other members of our team. We repeatedly asked APA last week to take action to help end the disruptive activity, without the need for legal action. But it became obvious to us yesterday that the APA Board was not prepared to take such action.

“We have no desire to pursue the legal path to put an end to the unlawful job action activity; however, we must protect our operation. The disruption cannot continue for our customers or our people. If the disruption does not end immediately, we will have no choice but to seek injunctive relief, and will do so quickly. We will continue to closely monitor our operations and determine what next steps are necessary.”

WOW!!

Sh*t's about to get REAL!

Have not the MBA V.P. types at A/A read the definition of insanity? i.e. continuing with the same course of action, over and over, and expecting different results....Please, somebody get her (V.P. Denise Lynn) to step away from her computer's 'send' key!!!

All this did was anger more pilots and make the minimum acceptable bar for a contract that much higher. Regardless of whether things "calm down" or not (and I think they will to some degree), it will not make passing the next TA easier whenever that is as many, many AA pilots have no further interest in negotiating with these people ever, let alone anytime in the near future.

Most at this point just prefer to limp along until at least till January and perhaps even through the BK. It may be easier to convince the BOD of a deal, but getting the pilots to ratify anything will be a much more difficult task. IMO, the damage to this employee group is now irrepairable and I think there's little chance of most of these 7500 employees ever truly caring about the future of this carrier again and I'm baffled how anyone thinks they can salvage the situation at this point.

"The beatings will continue until morale improves."

Despite public claims otherwise, I believe the UCC will be very reluctant to support another extention to this managements exclusivity period ending in very late December. Additionally, the NDA period for U and Parker will have expired. Based on that, I think Horton & Co. are under enormous pressure to both produce an agreement with the pilots and stop any erosion of the company's viability.

A reprieve in the latter area doesn't make the former more likely. The well is hopelessly poisoned now and the focus for the pilots should now be any strategy that improves a U takeover while still in BK. If that means 3-9 months with no pension contributions and under the tyranny of the 1113, then that would be a small and fairly brief price for a better future for the pilots.

eaglefly, How many retirements are anticpated for 1 Oct. Tomorrow, 28 Sep is the deadline to elect retirement for 1 Oct. Would appreciate it if you could post here when the numbers are out. Thanks

C'mon AA pilots, you can do better than 87%. I'd guess that, at least through the holidays, 95% of these old birds are going to need a thorough going over by maintenance before each and every flight.

Keep up the good fight - it's working.

Numbers won't be out till the 1st, so I don't know. I don't anticipate an excessive number though. I think the real exodus will occur starting June 1 of next year. AA has to be out of BK by then and especially if the pilots are still working under the tyranny of this term sheet, pilots will have their B-funds quantified and transferred to other qualified accounts, will be close to or have any BK claim amount quantified and will have little interest in remaining on the torture rack for a nice summer at their ages.

Many will have concluded they have reached the point of diminishing returns and that since AA is unlikely to ever change their stripes, they'll bail. Takes 3-4 months to recruit and train a pilot and 8 weeks to transition a pilot to new equipment and hundreds could leave every month next summer. AA would have to front load hundreds of pilots in advance into 777, 767, 737 status starting very soon to ensure no scheduling issues in addition to firing up the Airbus program. I foresee a disaster that will make the present situation look like a 10-minute gate hold by comparison. I also expect the pilots to blamed for it as usual.