And Ray says: Any time wages for the same type job vary 4 to 1, there will be trouble.

One would assume that pilots understand Econ 101.

I don’t mean that every pilot should stage a wildcat strike when they’re unhappy, but when things don’t seem to be headed in the right direction, as AAGuy mentioned, most employees still seem to depend upon someone else — union, management, regulators — to decide their fate.

Even when it’s not working, most sit there and say “What can I do?”

My two cents is that we can ALWAYS do something. No one forces us to sit back and accept anything. Change might not be easy for sure.

But in the end, we still have more control over our lives than we believe.

Imagine if we thought there was nothing we could do if a stick-shaker goes off on approach?

Let this be a lesson to all you kids out there. Don’t be a sheep. Get educated and be management.

;-)

(Sorry, had to lighten this up a bit.)

On a more serious note, when and if AA goes under, this surely will solve any “pilot shortage” issues out there for at least a few more years, no?

But in practice, this is not the case. American would like nothing more than to destroy the union, pit employee against employee, destroy pensions (done), and literally reduce compensation to that of regional airlines.

There interests lie with serving themselves first, then serving their shareholders. The employees are simply tools to be tossed around, fired, furloughed, defeated, whatever. Whatever it takes to get them inline. On the other hand, its the pilots job to negotiate the best deal they can.

But I say this to you, you cannot have the companies, passengers, or employees best interests at heart when you destroy one group than give yourself a fat raise.

Are you the only pilot at American who thinks communications with the company needs to improve … and that perhaps using the union as a filter right now is not the best solution?

As you righted mentioned with your salary comment, everything can appear much different depending on your perspective. You are absolutely correct that that kind of salary is nothing to sneeze at these days.

But this argument is about much more than simply money. While I never intended to purposely mislead anyone about Crandall’s remarks, it was the comment about respect that support my point and the reason I used it.

One problem I see here endlessly is how black and white these issues become. If I’m right, you musty be wrong. In this day and age that idea is just silly.

I’m perfectly OK with someone telling me I’m out to lunch with my thoughts if they can make a good argument. I’m not too old to learn something which is why Jetwhine has existed continuously for six years.

To your comment about management though … actually, if I can make myself irrelevant I’ll b e a truly happy guy because it would mean I’ve hired some astounding people. And I’m OK with that.

Your last point about the responsibility the union plays in this mess is a good one and should be mentioned. A union, heck any big organization I think, at some point can stop serving its original purpose and start focusing more on protecting its turf.

That’s where individuals come in, I think. They need to speak up. For the most part though, pilots don’t speak up, union members as members don’t speak up and heck even the average citizen no longer speaks up about much of anything until it hits them individually.

Did you know that if we tallied up the number of people in America who are registered to vote, but choose not to because they think it doesn’t matter, their numbers would exceed the number of people who classify themselves as Republicans and Democrats put together?

So who on the management OR the union member side will have the courage to be a bit gray (read compromise) in a world where everyone sees American’s issues as black or white?

I’m open to thoughts on how to better our situation. Civil disobedience has caused change in the real world, I don’t see how this is any different.

>>Finally, I have to chuckle at all the pilots and other union members who now show so much “respect” for Bob Crandall

I know of nobody who wants anything less than to kick him in the pants

>>Union members always blame management when things get tough and are loath to accept any of the blame or to recognize changing market conditions

I hate having to be in a union. Our contract is the only thing that stands between us and the company. The contract is the only vehicle we have for even communicating with anyone in the company. There is no other vehicle for communication. It’s like the company is a third world nation, without an embassy (contract), there are no formal channels of communication. As much as I hate having to be union, I can’t help but think about how much worse off we could be without it, how badly we would be walked over.

I find it peculiar that no one has mentioned the role that Union Management has played in this mess. They’ve been telling union members for decades that the company doesn’t respect them (whether or not it’s true) and demonizing (or casting as incompetent) every company employee that isn’t a member of their union. Do you think this has anything to do with the mistrust between the employees and management? The self-serving union management deserves a lot of the blame for this and other airline failures.

Finally, I have to chuckle at all the pilots and other union members who now show so much “respect” for Bob Crandall (whom they called “Darth Vader” when he led AA), on this and many other message boards. I was present at the AA “President’s Conference” at DFW circa 1993 when the pilots stood up en masse and walked out during the middle of his presentation in protest of some real or imagined grievance. For those same pilots to now say that he “was an airline guy who knew his stuff” calls into question not only their past judgement, but their present judgement as well. Union members always blame management when things get tough and are loath to accept any of the blame or to recognize changing market conditions. This begs one final question: what are the odds that the airline industry has attracted all the worst managers in the World?

You mention that you respectfully disagree with my conclusions. Thanks, I appreciate that except for one thing, I did not make any conclusions. My post was a comment from Bob Crandall, so the person you disagree with is Mr. American Airlines, Mr. Crandall, (who is much more knowledgeable than I am) and not me.

AAGuy, a pilot, says “I would rather see this airline fail outright then continue to give give give back.” My suggestion is to resign right now, today, and look for a job elsewhere. It will be much easier to find one now than it will be after the airline fails outright and all those other pilots are looking for work too.

And changes to the industry? Sure they’ve occurred, but what difference does it make now?

The question is what both labor and management are willing to do at this point.

The winners SHOULD be the customers, but unless all sides get together pretty soon, those folks will disappear and the rest won’t matter.

If that means employees, management and shareholders need to back up a bit, they might all do it if they thought everyone would share in the grief for the same common goal.

But that’s never the way the game is played, is it?

So go ahead and blame the pilots, or the flight attendants or the mechanics or ramp workers or anyone else some of you have chosen here and see where it gets this formerly astounding airline.

You and management just might be right all the way to Chapter 7.

I remember flying on AA the week after the 9/11 attacks. I was on the concourse in New Orleans and there was NO ONE on the concourse. It was completely, totally empty. There were maybe a dozen passengers on that flight. The crew was shellshocked, but they were there, flying.

With all due respect sir, the recent “protest” actions of the pilots make these otherwise courageous and professional aviators seem impetuous and immature. A kind of “I’ll show them” attitude.

There is a stange subculture among frequent flyers, those of us who live on airplanes. There was a time when being a FF on American was actually a status symbol within the subculture. Strange, but true. After the last few weeks, you don’t admit that you fly American. The airline is seen as a basket case that is causing its own demise.

Don Carty asked us for a pay cut in 2003 and we gave it to him. Our reward? Bonus’s for management. Not to mention a purchase of a bankrupt airline ( TWA ) while in the throws of a post 9-11 recession.

Then Gerard Arpy who gutted our domestic network and over code-shared to the point of making us non-competitive.

The BK was not the employee’s doing, but current management wants more from from the employees. Is it any wonder that the pilots said “enough”?

It revulses me to see some Waldo Waterman claim that those young whippersnappers aren’t as good as we were back in the day. My career straddled both eras, from the more or less primitive 707 to the 777. The job simply changed, like most others. In many ways the job got far more complex, more knowledge necessary in areas that had not previously been part of the profession. I wonder how some of the crotchety old captains I flew with “Back in the Day” would have adapted to this new world.
I am sure business interests would love to see the pilots be good boys and girls and take their punishment. Punishment for being at an airline where the fault is mostly with management that never figured out how to adapt. JetBlue, Southwest, UPS, Fedex all pay their employees, including their pilots, well. Better business plan, better and leaner management.
It is not helpful to see pontificating on this subject without understanding what the story really is. Sometimes it is worth a fight rather than to tuck your tail between your legs and whimper.

The top managers are just that now, managers instead of leaders; and therefore they have lost sight of what makes a company good.

The mantra that business is a convenient way of saying that it is profit without regard to balancing revenue with accomplishment. In short, the question is not “How can I maximize profit?” It is “How can I make enough profit to provide for this company to prosper, improve market share and serve my customers with happy employees.

I’m not a seeing a way out for American right now. Old airplanes, old flight crews, cranky old flight attendants and ground staff that for the most part, could care less. When the WSJ came out and told people not to book through the holidays – thats gotta kill what hope was left.

AA management sucked. Crandall was no genius – he was only first – and the hub and spoke idea has had its hey day. AA management was greedy, they lied, they cheated and are and were incompetent for the most part.

AA tried to cost cut by hammering its employees – and the employees – not seeing the writing on the wall – took it personally. It was not personal – its business. Business has this unrelenting need to earn a profit or you are no longer in business. You can only play so many games but most of the people working today started in the 1980′s – and deregulation was not so bad for the big legacy carriers back then. Times have changed. Air travel is like bus or train travel – no glamour no pride no one cares enough to wear shoes anymore it seems. It is a commodity business – and employees in a commodity business don’t get paid what professionals get paid.

I am a pilot. I flew USN and then took time off and now fly for myself. I gotta tell ya flying a fully equipped modern GA airplane today is not like a mechanical radio Skyhawk and ADF in the 1970′s. . . we have radar onboard, traffic, geo-ref approach plates – life is good and while flying requires the same amount of judgment it always has – it requires less skill. Like every industry where technology does the drudgery .. .