First you assume that UAL and DAL does no heavy maintenance on their own a/c. That would be incorrect.
United and Delta both still do plenty of maintenance, but the reality is that neither of them has the equivalent of a TULE (or even an AFW, for that matter) that they are paying for and using to perform MBVs on virtually any portion of their fleet.
Next you assume it's cheaper to outsource with no financial data to substantiate your claim. Only management has the specific data to support either claim and they're not sharing.
I'm a simple guy, so - admittedly - I'm using rough math and what I would consider common sense here.
But if a plane is going in for an MBV that entails materiel and thousands of man-hours of touch labor, it just seems like common sense that it would be cheaper to do that non-unionized and/or lower-$/hour in El Salvador, Hong Kong, Beijing, TIMCO, etc. than in unionized Tulsa or Fort Worth. Perhaps I'm wrong in that assumption - but I don't see how it's possible that a guy working on a jet in China could possibly cost more than a guy working on a jet in Texas.
I realize there is the downtime and ferry time issue - true - but can Tulsa really overhaul a 737 appreciably faster than TIMCO? If the ferry time to get the jet from TUL to DFW is, say, 1 hour, and the ferry from, say, SAL to DFW is 5 hours, do those extra 4 hours of flight time really add so much cost as to overwhelm thousands of man-hours of lower labor rates?
And, also, this doesn't take into account quality at all. Personally, while I'm fully know that their is plenty of excellent, high-quality maintenance performed all around the world, I myself definitely like now that when I step onto an AA plane (which I do quite often), that plane was maintained in the U.S., by an AMT directly employed by the airline, who is FAA-certified and speaks fluent English. Indeed, I am happily willing to pay a few more bucks for that knowledge. But - alas - do most other air travelers today feel as I do? I don't think so.
And as for the comment "only management has the specific data?" Seriously? The TWU doesn't estimate and benchmark what their competitors at TIMCO, HAECO, Aeroman, etc. cost to maintain planes? Wow - that's scary.
As I've admitted in previous posts, there are productivity issues that will be agreed to that will work for AA and APA. The normal retirement numbers coming shortly will mitigate any APA job loss concerns. Some productivity issues are AA's problem. Any pilot would love 82+ hours in 12 days like SWA. AA schedules that in 15-16 days. Quick turns like SWA? Out of APA's control. Small jet costs? APA could have the FO working for $5 hour and the numbers still wouldn't work unless TWU/MX/APFA get onboard. We already tried that with the CRJ900 by offering lowball rates.
I agree that much of the productivity improvements are not directly the responsibility of the unions or their contract, and that definitely the company itself has to take more responsibility for more efficiently scheduling the system and crews. (I know their are various factors at play, most of which I don't understand, but I agree that in many cases there must be a more efficient way.)
But there also are, as I think you are agreeing, areas where the APA contract (and the other contracts as well, but the APA most importantly) can be modified - probably in many cases at little or no negative impact on members - to give AA the greater flexibility and productivity it needs to help improve its network and finances.
Another productivity issue that will improve with retirements is sick leave use and vacations. Our group is old and gets sick more than the retiree replacements will be and also affects the numbers when comparing to other pilot groups.
Interesting. Makes sense.
Different fleet types? I've heard AA lumps in everything on pilot costs while ignoring they bought all the fleet types and the costs involved.
Luckily AA has done a good job of simplifying the fleet in the last decade, and that is continuing to improve. Comparing the fleet today versus the fleet ten years ago, the number of fleets and sub-fleets is greatly reduced. Indeed, with Continental now merging into United, AA has pretty much the most simplified and standardized fleet of any of the legacy carriers, and with the new 737s and A320s arriving soon, and ultimately replacing three more fleet types (and, by my uneducated count, at least six sub-fleets overall), that should drive the cost of fleet variation down even further.
Everybody is getting beat up with compensation comparisons. It sucks for everybody. However, AA pilot pay isn't as far as some would like to believe when compared nationally and even worldwide. I don't like it anymore than you do, but Tulsa's numbers probably don't compare very well worldwide.
I think that's pretty much true for most work groups at AA - not just the pilots, or the mechanics. In many cases the real competitive disadvantage with AA's labor "cost" isn't really much the direct labor "pay" but rather the efficiencies and flexibilities that other airlines have been able to achieve through bankruptcy. As has been discussed endlessly here, in many cases AA's employees indeed aren't the highest-paid among legacy carriers (although most AA pay groups, on average, still make more, no average, than comparable groups at most low-fare airlines). I sincerely hope that the company and the unions can find a way to fairly and equitably trade off higher base pay per employee against productivity per employee, and flexibility for the enterprise - which will, over the long-term, benefit both the company and the employees.
