American Airlines Size

[FWAAA]

I get the desire to have flexibility" in ones work schedule, but not working at your company at all and still having access to medical insurance and travel benfits (?) is absurd and no doubt costly. I know of at least one pilot who "works" for American and who does very little flying because he has another business of his own. I'm not sure how that happens, but all his medical costs must get spread across the folks who do work.

I don't know about pilots, but FAs must fly a certain number of hours to continue AA-provided health insurance (and it's not a trivial number of hours). Problem is, it's substantially fewer hours than full-time work.

 

[eolesen]

I get the desire to have flexibility" in ones work schedule, but not working at your company at all and still having access to medical insurance and travel benfits (?) is absurd and no doubt costly. I know of at least one pilot who "works" for American and who does very little flying because he has another business of his own. I'm not sure how that happens, but all his medical costs must get spread across the folks who do work.

Not to mention when it keeps someone else out on furlough.

 

[737823]

All the 738s scheduled for the BOS-LAX route and just about all that fly in and our of ORD are configured at 16/144. The old 16/132 configuration is rapidly being phased out as the 738 fleet is being converted to the new denser seating capacity.

That must have recently changed because for a while it was new (articulating seats, laptop slot, AC outlets, drop down LCDs) while for much of the summer it was an older but still adequate 738 (non-articulating, DC outlets, CRT overheads, etc). I looked at the seatmap for coach and next weeks flight is 30 rows instead of 28. AA keeps changing the equipment on BOS-LAX and its really annoying. Fortunately there is a 767 in the evenings, but that appears to end in November and becomes a 737-800. The 767 is awesome and almost on par with Virgin America for first class.

737823 (Josh) doesn't realize that FA staffing decisions are not solely within the province of AA management. AA transcons generally feature better meal service than other airlines (although others are playing catch-up in an attempt to take away premium transcon business) and thus must feature more than the FAA-minimum crew. If AA were to eliminate an FA position, it would violate the FA contract and a grievance would result. Anybody remember the 777 arbitration resulting from the short-staffing? Some of the service cutbacks to F and J meals have been a direct result of AA attempting to avoid another "overworked" FA grievance.

AA isn't overstaffing its flights with too many FAs. And the FA staffing levels aren't the cause of AA's labor cost disadvantage. Part of the problem is too many FAs flying too few hours yet flying enough hours to qualify for benefits, like medical insurance. If FAs flew more hours on average, there would be fewer FAs and thus, fewer FAs on the medical insurance roster. Lots of $$$ savings right there. Enough money to give the remaining FAs a raise plus cost savings for AA. Everyone wins except the FAs who like being an FA on what amounts to a part-time basis. (That "flexibility" that everyone so reveres.)

Yes, I do misunderstand why management isn't in control of its productive resources which includes labor. That's interesting about the meal cutbacks because the JFK transcons quality and quantity has skimped in the past couple of years when I was taking them regularly. I seem to recall 3-class first had more substantial appetizers and separate entrees like international.

Anyway, AA does seem to overstaff compared to Delta 737-800s. Delta even removed seats several years ago (since added back to total 160 seats) to have exactly 150 seats on board. There was an empty row at the back of each aircraft on one side and a row of two seats across. I trust since AA only has the best and most competent management (since they are after all the industry leader in profitability) they have run the calculations and have determined the incremental revenue of 12 seats justifies the expense of an additional flight attendant.

It sounds like AA needs to make the flight attendants more productive and have them work more hours and segments per month. It's funny because several of the Tokyo flight attendants have said they regularly only fly 5-6 days a month because of the layover structure.

Josh

 

[Veritas]

I trust since AA only has the best and most competent management (since they are after all the industry leader in profitability) they have run the calculations and have determined the incremental revenue of 12 seats justifies the expense of an additional flight attendant.

I strongly suggest that you check your facts. AMR profitability lags behind just about every other U.S. based airline. As a matter of fact, AMR is the only airline holding company that consistently post losses.

Take a look at this site: AirlineFinancials.com

On the other hand, on a trans con flight one or two extra Y fares more than pay for the cost of the extra flight attendant.

 

[737823]

I strongly suggest that you check your facts. AMR profitability lags behind just about every other U.S. based airline. As a matter of fact, AMR is the only airline holding company that consistently post losses.

Take a look at this site: AirlineFinancials.com

On the other hand, on a trans con flight one or two extra Y fares more than pay for the cost of the extra flight attendant.

I was being facetious

Josh