American Airlines limiting passengers on some jets

[wcs]

if you see something that has an impact on you being able to do your job correctly, but you don't report it, who will??? It might not be in your job description, but if you see something and don't question it, that's just as bad

As I clearly stated in my original post, it is a fact that many, many flight attendants expressed concerns about the new aircraft occupancy versus the slide raft capacity when the initial Cabin Improvement Program was accomplished.
Employees "a step down the accountability chain" have reported inconsistencies in many programs at many levels. The problem is that the top of the accountability chain refuses to be acountable.

 

[IORFA]

WOW, you fly with some very smart and motivated people. I am not trying to be sarcastic or demeaning, but I never once heard anyone, including a F/A, mention anything ever about raft capacity. More seats and less lavs, sure. I guess I work only with people that assume AA knows what they are doing when it comes to crunching numbers. That usually is their strong point. Just curious, where are you based? I bet almost all F/A's wouldn't even know what the formula is that would make AA compliant. I don't ever remember being told how to figure it out, maybe we were. Plus don't forget that all rafts have 2 different sets of capacity numbers. Just to make it a little more confusing.

 

[wcs]

WOW, you fly with some very smart and motivated people. I am not trying to be sarcastic or demeaning, but I never once heard anyone, including a F/A, mention anything ever about raft capacity. More seats and less lavs, sure. I guess I work only with people that assume AA knows what they are doing when it comes to crunching numbers. That usually is their strong point. Just curious, where are you based? I bet almost all F/A's wouldn't even know what the formula is that would make AA compliant. I don't ever remember being told how to figure it out, maybe we were. Plus don't forget that all rafts have 2 different sets of capacity numbers. Just to make it a little more confusing.

I'm not a Flight Attendant. I have spoken with EPT instructors who relayed to management the questions that were asked during recurrent training. I wouldn't expect Flight Attendants to even be aware of the total capacity requirement but the questions were asked.

 

[formeraa]

It should be a pretty straight-forward calculation on the cost side. From the article it appears that additional capacity above rated capacity for no more than 8 people would meet the regulation.

It's the revenue side that's harder to get a handle on. Would enough of the 8 seats made usable by added raft capacity be sold often enough to offset the cost of carrying the extra raft weight?

Jim

Actually, AA has done these types of calculation for years in Yield Management. Basically, you make some demand assumptions and apply some formulas. It will give you a good picture of the revenue side of the equation.

 

[Skymess]

Actually, AA has done these types of calculation for years in Yield Management. Basically, you make some demand assumptions and apply some formulas. It will give you a good picture of the revenue side of the equation.

Ah yes, yield management...the masterminds.

A group of us working one of the planes in question the other day were cracking up over the 'apparent' oversight about the raft situation that we've unknowingly dealt with for a few years now. We decided that we could just sharpie NR on non revs foreheads.

NR=Non Rev or
NR= No Raft.

When you are evacuating you could be like, "not you, come back later".

AA will probably come up with this on their own in the next memo. If you are a pilot from another airline you are exempt from the NR on your forehead, of course. If you don't have to pay a fee to ride in F, even though people that actually work at AA do, why should you have to miss out on a liferaft?

 

[BoeingBoy]

Basically, you make some demand assumptions and apply some formulas.

I agree, and if anyone has a long history of doing yield management it's AA. My point was that the factors affecting the cost side of the equation are reasonably well known - weight of additional raft capacity, routes the airplane fly's, affect of extra weight on fuel burn, etc. On the cost side, as you said, some demand assumptions have to be made.

Since it appears that blocking seats is a temporary measure until the additional raft capacity can be added, I assume that they've concluded the additional revenue provided by those 8 seats is greater than the cost of carrying the extra reft capacity.

Jim