AA to go back to "banked" hubs
- Thread starter Kev3188
- Start date
I'm sorry, Captain, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. You're just not entitled to your own facts. The facts are that US has lost more money than it's earned since the merger with HP (if you net the profits and losses) and the profitable years were enabled by your very low pay. It's great that you've finally escaped the regional payrates that were forced on you almost a decade ago, but those payrates are the very reason why Parker and Kirby were able to report some profitable years since 2005.PullUp said:
As to whether re-banking the AA hubs will increase revenue? I don't know. For the sake of the employees of new AA, let's hope they generate more revenue than their higher costs.
WorldTraveler
Corn Field
- Dec 5, 2003
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large hubs like ATL and DFW have more than enough frequency to offset the unbanked nature of those hubs... but even ATL is really partially banked and I suspect the same is true of DFW and ORD even now. DTW and MSP are much more heavily banked. In high frequency markets that have hourly service for instance, you will sacrifice the frequency of the schedule for the sake of making the banks work. I'm not sure what markets AA operates on a pure hourly basis... but if those types of markets exist, then AA will either lose the marketing advantage of flights at a specific minute every hour or the hubs will not truly be banked since I don't think there is any hub that operates on the same minute of the hour every hour.
It is undoubtedly the case that Parker can try to push for increased revenue at the expense of higher costs because AA will have more planes and employees than it needs. If AA currently has an out and back schedule from DFW to TPA and FLL, for instance, or ORD to SFO and SAN, there will be unnecessary and increased ground at one of those two outstations. The way that excess ground time is avoided is by scheduling from a network perspective with a plane arriving from ORD turning to make up a flight to DFW, a practice that I believe AA eliminated several years ago. It also won't be possible until AA has a single ops cert or ends up with a very, very complex schedule since crews and aircraft will be separated for some time between PMAA and PMUS.
Either way, adding banks where they don't currently exist does have a cost.
Now we will find out if Doug and gang have what it takes to run a large airline without the hammer of bankruptcy. My guess is that they will be back at the employees shortly because of the weather, economy, phase of the moon, alignment of the stars,etc,etc. This merger had nothing to do with making a stronger, better company......it was all about egos (management) and making a few people a lot of money. There will be no loss of face among the senior management types if it doesn't work because they will have accomplished their goal by making themselves richer.
Bob
I'm sure you're right about them focusing on the operation. Is it possible that certain management types get a large bonus for operational stats or did that go away with the merger? Having a smooth running operation does not mean it will make money it will more than likely just make more money for some of the managers.
All the best,
Bob
RJcasualty
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- Jun 29, 2004
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Banking flights can have a direct impact on on-time stats. That said, I don't think there are any penalties involved from garden variety delays other than bad publicity generated from the DOT numbers. With airlines making unprecedented profits via constricted capacity, old fashioned, nickel and dime delays have been relegated to the back burner. OTOH, I've had heads-up messages from management requesting attention to certain segments prone to chronic delays. The gist being that a chronic delay on a given segment would imperil the company's service to the community in question.
RJcasualty
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- Jun 29, 2004
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I agree with you on your post. Now that the cheerleaders have put away their pompoms I think the employee group will find out that the honeymoon is over and they will find out that not much has changed. I find it hard to accept that Doug and gang really have changed their philosophy regarding employee relations and will soon have the lawyers "interpreting" all that was positive for the employees.......of course if you have 5 yrs or so you can also file an "expedited" grievance and then wait for a couple more years while the company tries to weasel out of the remedy!
Good luck and all the best,
Bob
Would you rather have more pay and fewer workers or everyone keeping their jobs? BTW all airlines pay market rates to their nonunion employees without issue. And did you notice SWA had over 10K applicants for 750 FA jobs. Turnover in this industry is also very low. There really is no case to be made that airline employees are under paid dispite your union telling you that all the time.
That has nothing to do with the state of labor relations at US.
Eight years for the FAs to have a JCBA, three years of section 6 negotiating for all 3 IAM groups, and over 2 years for the CWA, and over 8 years for the pilots.
Yep labor relations are stellar, come out from your cubical and see how the real front line employees have to deal with.
Making less now than they were over 10 years ago.
Eight years for the FAs to have a JCBA, three years of section 6 negotiating for all 3 IAM groups, and over 2 years for the CWA, and over 8 years for the pilots.
Yep labor relations are stellar, come out from your cubical and see how the real front line employees have to deal with.
Making less now than they were over 10 years ago.
