AAG had 113,300 employees as of Dec. 31. That’s up nearly 3,000

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

Have you ever pushed back or taxied an aircraft?

You never leave a tug after a pilot says "brakes off, clear to push".

It is painfully obvious that you have no clue how aircraft movement operations work on a ramp or in a cockpit.

Pushed back yes, taxied no. 
 
I would have done a perimeter check BEFORE I got into the tug. I have never done a push back without walking around the aircraft and observing the surrounding area. 
 
Painfully obvious you say? Well I can honestly say I have never caused aircraft damage doing a push back. I guess I was doing something right.

 

[Kev3188]

LaLi-- People make mistakes. It's one of the downfalls of having your hiring pool restricted only to human beings...

There's also a big diiference between an honest mistake (or a chain of factors leading to an event) and wanton negligence...

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

Never been in a cockpit eh? 
They have door open/closed indicators fyi. So its as simple as looking at his/her instruments which i fully expect a pilot to be able to do.  

What the pilot said is irrelevant.
 
You can say anything you want to excuse it but the fact is if he would have taken the time to do a perimeter check around the aircraft it would not have happened.
 
Would you ask someone if an electrical circuit was dead and make your life dependent on their information or would you have checked it yourself before you even started working on it?

 

[Glenn Quagmire]

LaLi-- People make mistakes. It's one of the downfalls of having your hiring pool restricted only to human beings...
There's also a big diiference between an honest mistake (or a chain of factors leading to an event) and wanton negligence...

^^^^^ got it ^^^^^

A succesful turn requires many different parties all doing their job correctly in a timely manner. That includes the gate agent pulling the jetway back after late door closure.

When the pilot says brakes off, clear to push, you push. You do not get out and "do a perimeter check".

With every post he makes here, it becomes more clear that he has never been involved in ramp ops. It is good that he is not, because he would not be allowed on my ramp with the statements he has made here:

What the pilot said is irrelevant.

Classic

 

[ThirdSeatHero]

of course they do... but nowhere near in the volume that DL does.

perhaps you can tell us the value of UA's MRO revenues.

 
I never claimed UA did more than DL - I pointed out that your original post on the matter was incorrect ...
 

 
WorldTraveler, on 28 Feb 2015 - 3:23 PM, said:

clearly DL believes in Tech Ops to deliver a product that AA, UA and US do not or they don't bother to pursue that work... and if that is the case, then there has to be a very good explanation as to why they do not.
 

 
Again, contrary to your claim, UA Tech Ops does indeed insource customer work and actively pursues more - you clearly didn't know what you were talking about, and now in typical WT style you're trying to requalify your remarks with a volume-of-work comparison to try and deflect from your original incorrect statement.
 
Nice Try

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

LaLi-- People make mistakes. It's one of the downfalls of having your hiring pool restricted only to human beings...

There's also a big diiference between an honest mistake (or a chain of factors leading to an event) and wanton negligence...

Are you telling me that missing a big ass jet bridge still connected to a big ass aircraft is an honest mistake?
 
Seriously?
 
Look Kev, I am not trying to be disrespectful but, in my opinion the ONLY way anyone could have missed that is if they did not even make an effort to look.  I would think anybody that does push backs for a living would know to observe the area surrounding the aircraft and to make sure their intended path was clear. 
 
In my opinion if you are too damn lazy to take a few seconds and make sure everything is in order before moving a brand new multimillion dollar aircraft and then cause millions in damages then that is by definition wanton negligence. That is damage not caused by oversight, but by pure laziness and stupidity.
 
Are you really trying to justify missing something as obvious as a jet bridge sticking out of the side of an aircraft?

 

[Bob Owens]

It's great that AA wants to increase employment and help the middle class - where DL wants to outsource and drive wages down

Starting wages for Fleet workers is hardly "middle class". 

 

[T5towbar]

^^^^^ got it ^^^^^

A succesful turn requires many different parties all doing their job correctly in a timely manner. That includes the gate agent pulling the jetway back after late door closure.

When the pilot says brakes off, clear to push, you push. You do not get out and "do a perimeter check".

With every post he makes here, it becomes more clear that he has never been involved in ramp ops. It is good that he is not, because he would not be allowed on my ramp with the statements he has made here:


Classic

Before I push back an aircraft, I always do my "walkaround" AFTER the jetway is pulled. Some do it before, but I always do it after it is pulled. Hell with being on-time. Sometimes you get lazy or unattentive wing walkers (and with our new staffing model, you get different people working on every flight, some even coming in just to wingwalk), I need to see and prepare my exit path as I walk around.
 
That's why the walkarounds are mandatory. All of that must be done before sitting down on the pushback. As we all know, there are cameras at the gates, and that can see what actually happened, and if procedures were followed. If you lie, you are gone, plain and simple. The Union can't defend the indefensible.
 
But each incident has to be fairly investigated, and the suspension is given (3 days). But if there is mitigating circumstances, the person will be back to work. But now, if there are obvious mistakes like drive off's, someone is getting fired. There is no excuse for doing a 3 point connection with GSE. 

 

[eolesen]

hundreds of Analysts and other management positions!

I doubt it's in the hundreds, but they're definitely re-posting positions, some every 30 days. They're simply not finding people willing to go to work there, and I'm really not too surprised.

I've watched a couple dozen good AA people leave in the last year as they reach a breaking point with combinations of the arrogance and inexperience of the US people taking leadership positions. People holding down jobs in PHX who have no interest in moving to DFW are leaving as well. Maybe they see the writing on the wall after watching what's happened with MSP and HOU.

There's no shortage of outside jobs in PHX, even within travel (primarily Amex, but also both Choice Hotels and Best Western have their IT organizations in PHX). Same thing in DFW (WN, Sabre and even Greyhound, whose IT and HDQ staff functions aren't that different from an airline's).

They can't even get former employees like me to take them seriously, especially now that they've eliminated retroactive past seniority. I did consider a position at AA last year, but wrote it off after finding out my previous 17 years wouldn't count towards my retiree travel vesting or vacation. From a compensation standpoint, AA wasn't even in the ballpark on salary expectations. Other airlines obviously were.

Maybe they'll get lucky and find the right people who are motivated enough to drive the company forward. If they don't, this all starts to adds up to a much bigger problem for AA in a couple years.

 

[700UW]

Pushed back yes, taxied no. 
 
I would have done a perimeter check BEFORE I got into the tug. I have never done a push back without walking around the aircraft and observing the surrounding area.
 
Painfully obvious you say? Well I can honestly say I have never caused aircraft damage doing a push back. I guess I was doing something right.

You dont get and you never will.
 
The plane was pushed off the gate the APU died, the plane was towed back to the gate as the plane lost power.  The plane had the jetway reattached.  He then went inside while maintenance had to MEL the APU.
 
Mechanics were doing the airstart and he went outside and got on the tug, you cant walk around a 757 while engines running.
 
Like I said you werent there and have no clue about all the circumstances that led to this accident.

 

[Bob Owens]

DL Maintenance DOES have something all others don't.  The scabs of Northwest.
 
Never forget.

Unfortunately we got their (NWA) management.

 

[Bob Owens]

 
Not apples to apples. 
Parker has never, to my knowledge operated an airline making the money AA is and will be making. It becomes very hard to get concession when you are making 5 Billion a year
 
 

 Just ask the IAM, didn't they agree to concessions while AA was pulling in Billions per quarter?  Thats why as we see from the LAX Town Hall they cant wait to cut a deal with the Association. 

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

What the pilot said is irrelevant.

Classic

Yes Glenn that's right.
 
I stand by what I said.
 
As a ground worker I know what my responsibilities are.
 
I would not neglect my duties, what I know I am supposed to do, on someone else's say so. That is how you cause 7 million dollars worth of aircraft damage.

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

Starting wages for Fleet workers is hardly "middle class". 

No, it is not.
 
I have wondered if the low starting wage and the 9 year top out is not a tool used by the company to sabotage "employee retention". If I wanted a slow "poison" that would lead to outsourcing I might try to use that tactic.

 

[topDawg]

Alright so once again, you go ahead and turn this into a thread about Delta. Good job. 
 

dawg,
the only reason why you don't want to consider Tech Ops MRO revenue is because it blunts and eliminates your arguments that DL is manipulating maintenance work to hurt its employees.

no it doesn't at all. Doesn't matter how many engines Delta does in-house it will never create the jobs airframe work creates. 

I just like apple to apple and fair comparisons. I don't buy into this Delta can't be touched crap you are constantly trying to sell. 

you can't argue that AA employees have no control over MRO work but AA mgmt. does and yet fail to acknowledge that the same thing exists at DL - where DL has chosen to bring in enough MRO work equal to 1/4 of the value of what DL spends to maintain its own fleet.

AA employees do have some control over it. They can make their costs somewhat competitive. They can have the production that is competitive etc. etc. (example, someone is always running around here saying they should be making what UPS makes. Even though UPS on;y basically does line work in-house. (oddly enough he is a line guy. Once again, I got mine!) )
but management has to do its part too. 
 

for someone who claims to have business degrees, it is frightening that you fail to understand the principle of specialization and insourcing instead of trying to do everything inhouse. It is a basic principle of the industry revolution. in the pre-industrial revolution, one person tried to do everything while post industrial revolution it was recognized that one person or company can create more economic value by specializing in one function and doing it not only for himself but also for others.

as someone who talks down to people all the time is frightening that you can't read. Delta says all the time they want TechOps to be a one-stop shop (google it) 
 
So if that is the case, ever heard of this cool thing called economics of scale? (google it) 
 

for you to fail to understand tht DL is doing that principle and creating more economic wealth not only for itself but also for its employees is beyond frightening.

Didn't say that at all. Putting words in my mouth as normal. 
 

and again, let's see what AA actually ends up with, but given that the new APA and APFA contracts ended up with less total compensation than DL and yet they are allowing AA to outsource far more of AA's flying than DL is doing, it is beyond reasonable for you or anyone else to believe that anything different will happen for AA maintenance.

Once again, can we get a comparison since you keep saying this?