American Trying To Make Profit In Heavy Maint.

[goingboeing]

Recently, TUL cut the overhaul time for a heavy "C" check on a narrowbody aircraft roughly in half.Everyone is proud of our Union Brothers and Sisters in TUL for reaching the goals they set for themselves.

Prior to that accomplishment, the same sources reported that each day an MD-80 was OTS cost the compAAny some $10,000.00 in revenue per day.

Some six months ago, several of us asked why AA maintained far more Overhaul Infrastructure than needed; no one bothered to answer.

With the recent accomplishment of our Union Brothers and Sisters in TUL, we again ask why we can now do the same job in half the time but we have 30% more Overhaul Bases which are each operated at only 66% efficiency each?

With the recent 50% reduction in narrowbody heavy "C" check turn times, we can realize some 9 days of revenue production over the some 80 MD-80s that must turn a heavy "C" check every five years, spread over a MD-80 fleet of some 400 aircarft.

Given the numbers used in the AA/TWU puff piece, that equates to $90,000.00 revenue over 80 MD-80s yielding $7.2 Million in cost reductions/revenue generation.

Given the committment towards a $500,000,000.00 cost reduction/revenue generation: you Union Brothers and Sisters in TUL are 0.0144 on the way towards realizing our goal.

Cutting the turn time of a narrow body fleet in half, using the compAAny numbers for revenue lost: your best efforts achieved 1.44%of the goal over the most labor intensive portion of the work.

Do ya think the compAAny numbers might be a "little" skewed?

[post="273164"][/post]​

It is a futle effort to get a Heavy C check done days early and then watch the aircraft set on the TARMAC at TULE for 48 hours before a flight crew picks up the aircraft.From an operational standpoint the aircraft might as well have spent 2 more days on the dock.I thought that parked aircraft are losing money every day they are parked because they are not generating revenue or available when a A/C breaks on the gate with passengers on board.
Someone forgot to tell the flight crew schedulers that they need to change their ways to make the "improved" TULE maintenance work to its full potential.

 

[aafsc]

SO which one is it we end up with, and which one does Congress think we are rallying behind?

[post="273915"][/post]​

Well, I can't see into the future but I would think it will be the NW, CO, DL plan because of the fact it mandates a freeze. As to who is rallying around what, from discussions on this pension subject at work, some want a defined contribution plan and some want the defined benefit plan. Both have advantages and disadvantages. I feel what AA should do is give people a choice. If you want to stay in the defined benefit plan, fine. If you want a defined contribution plan, fine. AA would then take the amount you accrued from the pension plan and roll it over to a 401(k) style plan and from there on put a fixed amount in the account and then the individual invests (totally controls) his retirement. But if the individual makes bad investment choices and loses most of it, to bad, you wanted to assume the risk, you pay the consequences, no running around and crying "AA screwed me out of my pension".

 

[Boomer]

You guys wishing that a change in Political Parties will bring about some form of Social Security for airline workers are quantifiable subjects for a Stockholm Syndrome Study. Dems and Repubs have been gleefully bashing in our brains so that Ma and Pa Kettle can carry their Childrens to Disney for less than Greyhound. No less a Luminary of the Left than Teddy Kennedy fought for passage of a bill allowing airlines to CONTINUE shortfunding pensions even though the PBGC was telling Congress to leave it alone.
_________________________________________________
aafsc Yesterday, 11:29 PM Post #58

"There are 2 slightly different pension reforms being considered. NW, CO, and DL want the 25 year extension to pay their underfunded plans. Plus they want the plans to be frozen. AA and the unions plan is slightly different in that it wants the same 25 year payment plan but does NOT call for freezing the plans. AA's plans are much better funded than those of NW, CO, and DL. Having said this, the republican Congress will probably go woth the CO, NW, DL plan because it freezes the plans and the goal of the Bush administration is to kill traditional pension plans and force everyone into the stock market by making them have high risk defined contribution plans."
----------------------------------------------------------

Boomer Jan 19 2005, 05:35 AM Post #65
Rank: Veteran Member
Group: Founder's Club
Posts: 509
Joined: 20-August 02
Member No.: 93

QUOTE(Bob Owens @ Jan 16 2005, 06:56 PM)
That Senator must have some pull to push through anything being that he is a minority Democrat with a Republican controlled Senate, House and Executive!
----------------------------------------------------------
Bob,
From what I have been able to gather below, there is no difference between the Democrats and Republicans when it comes to screwing over airline workers. As AA and the TWU are fond of saying, this event was the result of a “perfect storm.â€￾ The perfection in the storm lay in the interests each of the parties had with respect to passage of the bill.

S.2282 passed with flying colors among both Republicans and Democrats because both parties wanted the issue "off the table," during the general election. In essence, postponing "judgment day" to the mid-year elections or possibly making the issue irrelevant. But, like the Savings and Loan debacle, which this boondoggle stands to double; everyone was warned by the PBGC prior to making the decision.
Director, PBGC: Senate Testimony March 11, 2003

Director, PBGC: House Testimony April 30, 2003

Director, PBGC: Senate Testimony October 8, 2004


Sen. Kennedy had a choice to make when it came to sponsorship of the bill: he could have filibustered its passage and allowed Kerry to take it up as a main issue in the general elections. This is not the first time that the good Senator from Massachusetts has decided to gaff the working stiff: Sen. Kennedy was a force behind the deregulation of the airline industry and inclusion of “labor protective provisionsâ€￾ within the ADA of 1978 that were never funded.
Kennedy, Carter and Airline Deregulation
Shortfunding the Labor Protective Provisions of the Airline Deregulation Act

But Kennedy was not alone, look at the co-sponsor to the bill, the Minority Senate Leader, Tom Daschle, D-SD. Sen. Daschle’s’ wife is a highly paid lobbyist with a firm that has AA among their client list. Daschle Married to Influnetial Airline Lobbyist

That brings us back to the unquestioned allegiance between the AFL-CIO and the Democratic party, and, why it is ultimately bad for the worker. The AFL-CIO and Union Leadership refusal to make Democrats pay the price for the passage of bills that hurt working people has made them irrelevant to the process. If the AFL-CIO and the Union Leadership put labor squarely in the middle and "giveth or taketh away" based on actual deals done, versus platitudes; we would reward those that help and hurt those that do not.

As it stands, labor does neither. We are the barking dog left on a chain, irritating but not dangerous.

The continuation of power is what most that possess it seek. The only thing that voters can really do is to take away the power of those we elect by refusing to re-elect them. The doddering politburo atop the Unions and the AFL-CIO have come to identify with those that harm us. They get Stockholm Syndrome and we get the personal finance version of the China Syndrome.

 

[aafsc]

I was all for the reform party and voted accordingly.

 

[Boomer]

I was all for the reform party and voted accordingly.

[post="273956"][/post]​

--------------------------------------

Yeah, right!

If you were "non-denominational" then why would you only single out GW and the Republicans?

On another note, for a noted ramper via your handle; you spend a lot of time on MX issues. Care to answer why?

 

[aafsc]

--------------------------------------

Yeah, right!

If you were "non-denominational" then why would you only single out GW and the Republicans?

On another note, for a noted ramper via your handle; you spend a lot of time on MX issues. Care to answer why?

[post="273958"][/post]​

Because I dislike him/them a lot more than I dislike the democrats; and I don't like them either.

The reason I talk about some MX issues is because my father is an A and P and I used to work in the MX hangar when I worked at EAL.

 

[Boomer]

Because I dislike him/them a lot more than I dislike the democrats; and I don't like them either.

The reason I talk about some MX issues is because my father is an A and P and I used to work in the MX hangar when I worked at EAL.

[post="273959"][/post]​

-------------------------------------------

Bottom line is that some on this board pretend that Kerry or the Dems would have ridden to our rescue or prevented what we are going through from happening; the truth is that the only Cavalry we can count on is ourselves.

As for Fleet Svc. v. Aircraft MX: AC Maint. lost overtime, holidays, vacation and pay to protect jobs. We have been losing those despite the BS from the TWU, the ramp is running several percentage points ahead of their pre 9-11 ot rate and are getting ready to hire off the street. I still have men on the street with no plans for recall; care to tell me the BS about AFL-CIO power and strength in numbers?

 

[mjk]

It is a futle effort to get a Heavy C check done days early and then watch the aircraft set on the TARMAC at TULE for 48 hours before a flight crew picks up the aircraft.From an operational standpoint the aircraft might as well have spent 2 more days on the dock.I thought that parked aircraft are losing money every day they are parked because they are not generating revenue or available when a A/C breaks on the gate with passengers on board.
Someone forgot to tell the flight crew schedulers that they need to change their ways to make the "improved" TULE maintenance work to its full potential.

[post="273922"][/post]​

Correction time................

The way it really works is this - TUL MOC sends a spotting message to dispatch requesting an aircraft either be ferried in, out, or both. On average these spotting messages give crew schedule about 5 to 6 hrs notice. Sometimes we get more notice, sometimes less. 95% of the time TUL MOC gets the crew at the requested time. The only exceptions are A300 equipment since BOS, LGA, and MIA are the only crew bases for the A300 and when weather is impacting DFW, thus reducing the amount of reserve crews available. However, TUL MOC has done a much better job lately giving us enough lead time on the A300 ferries.

Now, if TUL MOC waits 48 hrs to send us a spotting message, there isn't much we can do about that.

 

[aafsc]

-------------------------------------------

Bottom line is that some on this board pretend that Kerry or the Dems would have ridden to our rescue or prevented what we are going through from happening; the truth is that the only Cavalry we can count on is ourselves.

As for Fleet Svc. v. Aircraft MX: AC Maint. lost overtime, holidays, vacation and pay to protect jobs. We have been losing those despite the BS from the TWU, the ramp is running several percentage points ahead of their pre 9-11 ot rate and are getting ready to hire off the street. I still have men on the street with no plans for recall; care to tell me the BS about AFL-CIO power and strength in numbers?

[post="273963"][/post]​

1.You are correct about the democrats doing nothing for workers. Afer all Clinton did sign NAFTA. But now it seems the Mexicans in Mexico are loosing work to China because they will do it for less.

2.As far as I'm concerned the AFL-CIO is about as useless as a pint of horse pi$$. When they did not use their "strength in numbers" at EAL, by shutting the industry down, that set in motion what we see in this industry today. I think that one of the reasons the USAir people did not strike and why the UA people more than likely will not strike is because they remembered the AFL-CIOs total lack of support at EAL. AT EAL, there was ALPA, TWU, and the IAM but yet EAL was shut down. So does the strength come from the name and leadership of the union, or does it come from the membership in that union? To me, Charlie Bryan was a bit arrogant, but he was a very effective leader. So I say that you need a strong membership AND a strong leadership. But today union officials are more concerned about their salaries and perks because unions are nothing but a dues collecting business. That is why they failed. Now they are competing against each other for dues- TWU-IAM-AFL-CIO vs. AMFA(Delle-Femine). And none of them want a strike because the dues will stop.

3.I can tell you that ramp lost holidays, vacation, payrates, etc. I can also tell you that the reasons why there is/was overtime on the ramp is because in addition to usual weather and air traffic delays, ramp was/is VERY short staffed. They laid off a lot of people and MANY of them are refusing recall. Plus many also retired. When I was at my previous line station, there would sometimes be 3 or 4 people in the bagroom when you need a minimum of 9. This was on weekends with over 90% load factors. There would be 1 crew (3 clerks+1 crew chief) with 4 planes on the ground at the same time. Some of those planes waited to be parked and worked for between 45 minutes and 2 hours. The OT numbers for ramp you speak of would have been much higher but the ramp crews were so tired and wore out from going flight to flight that they refused the OT and went home when their shift ended.

 

[goingboeing]

Correction time................

The way it really works is this - TUL MOC sends a spotting message to dispatch requesting an aircraft either be ferried in, out, or both. On average these spotting messages give crew schedule about 5 to 6 hrs notice. Sometimes we get more notice, sometimes less. 95% of the time TUL MOC gets the crew at the requested time. The only exceptions are A300 equipment since BOS, LGA, and MIA are the only crew bases for the A300 and when weather is impacting DFW, thus reducing the amount of reserve crews available. However, TUL MOC has done a much better job lately giving us enough lead time on the A300 ferries.

Now, if TUL MOC waits 48 hrs to send us a spotting message, there isn't much we can do about that.

[post="273965"][/post]​

I stand corrected but the fact still remains that a MD80 sat on a ready spot for 48 hours and I'm sure it could have been used somewhere in the system to replace an out of service aircraft.

 

[TWU informer]

I stand corrected but the fact still remains that a MD80 sat on a ready spot for 48 hours and I'm sure it could have been used somewhere in the system to replace an out of service aircraft.

[post="273977"][/post]​

You have not figured it out yet?

The plan is not to get aircraft back into service, the plan is to have the AMT's do much more work for much less.

Once you understand the plan, you will no longer be timing the aircraft on the ready spot. Instead, you should be so busy, you do not have time to look out to the ready spot.

Come on, goingboeing, become more of team player and do more for less, and leave the management of the company and the aircraft schedules in the trusting hands of Burchette and Carmine.

By the way, HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY! The rest of us "team players" will be hard at work getting another aircraft out to the ready spot.

 

[Bob Owens]

I stand corrected but the fact still remains that a MD80 sat on a ready spot for 48 hours and I'm sure it could have been used somewhere in the system to replace an out of service aircraft.

[post="273977"][/post]​

I doubt that there is a shortage of aircraft in the system. On any given day there is at lease one "frequency" sitting at JFK. Most of the time there are three or four more, some OTS, sitting down at the hangar.

 

[local 12 proud]

You have not figured it out yet?

The plan is not to get aircraft back into service, the plan is to have the AMT's do much more work for much less.

Once you understand the plan, you will no longer be timing the aircraft on the ready spot. Instead, you should be so busy, you do not have time to look out to the ready spot.

Come on, goingboeing, become more of team player and do more for less, and leave the management of the company and the aircraft schedules in the trusting hands of Burchette and Carmine.

By the way, HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY! The rest of us "team players" will be hard at work getting another aircraft out to the ready spot.

[post="273981"][/post]​

the experiment that took place in 4D to cut the time it takes to complete a heavy C check virtually in half is very telling, and you can bet the bean counters have been watching this with a magnifying glass.

 

[Bob Owens]

Boomer,May 29 2005, 03:55 AM]
Sen. Kennedy had a choice to make when it came to sponsorship of the bill: he could have filibustered its passage and allowed Kerry to take it up as a main issue in the general elections. This is not the first time that the good Senator from Massachusetts has decided to gaff the working stiff: Sen. Kennedy was a force behind the deregulation of the airline industry and inclusion of “labor protective provisionsâ€￾ within the ADA of 1978 that were never funded.


Well, not so much in defense of but more as a matter of gaining a better perspective, Sen Kennedy more than likely is more influenced by what the organizations who claim to represent labor say than what workers like you an I express. I know its not right but that is what has become of our government.

As we can see from recent press releases our unions are participating in efforts to "delay" funding of our pensions. In effect allowing them to "increase underfunding". Why would they do that when they know that the larger that obligation becomes the less likely that it will ever be paid? Lets not forget that our dues fund the pensions for the International which are 100% funded.

Lets also not forget that at PAN AM the TWU was still endorsing concessions right until the day they shut the doors. Why? Because even if the members are no longer getting pensions, benifits or a livable wage the dues they pay provide all that for the TWU International.

So I doubt that Sen Kennedy focuses much time on how these things will effect workers and works under the assumption that the unions have already looked into that, and if they say OK, and corporate interests that provide jobs say its OK, then he supports it.

As far as the LPPs never being funded what happened in 1980? Could that be part of the reason why it was never funded?


That brings us back to the unquestioned allegiance between the AFL-CIO and the Democratic party, and, why it is ultimately bad for the worker. The AFL-CIO and Union Leadership refusal to make Democrats pay the price for the passage of bills that hurt working people has made them irrelevant to the process. If the AFL-CIO and the Union Leadership put labor squarely in the middle and "giveth or taketh away" based on actual deals done, versus platitudes; we would reward those that help and hurt those that do not.

As it stands, labor does neither. We are the barking dog left on a chain, irritating but not dangerous.



The continuation of power is what most that possess it seek. The only thing that voters can really do is to take away the power of those we elect by refusing to re-elect them. The doddering politburo atop the Unions and the AFL-CIO have come to identify with those that harm us. They get Stockholm Syndrome and we get the personal finance version of the China Syndrome.

I can agree with all of that except for the "giveth or taketh away" part. Because as you correctly stated that politically labor has become "irrelevant" simply offereing support to who helps labor is not enough. You are a union member however I think its fair to say that the position of the TWU or the AFL-CIO has absolutely no impact on your voting practices. Thats the case with most workers. Unions have become irrelevant to the workers for the same reason that they have become irrelevant to the politicians. They have become powerless, they only bark, they dont bite.

Unions will not change their status through political action. They will never be able to legislate themselves back into relevancy by bootlicking either party. The only way labor will gain any say in the two party dictatorship is if they make themselves felt and heard out on the streets. It will only be after the unions once again resort to economic disruption as a means to get fairness that the powers at be will try to once again lure them back into their arena.

Lets not forget the history of the labor movement. A movement that was never really accepted by those at the top, but merely tolerated.

At first the courts ruled that unions were illegal conspiracies. The law came down heavy on unionists. However when the powers at be realized that fighting unionism outright was futile they decided to tolerate them, and work on destroying them through other means.

One of the most effective things that they did to defang the labor movement was to get the labor movement to transform the strategy from withholding labor to withholding votes. Since both parties are really under the control of the same class of people and the majority of the population is not unionized anyway it was a no lose deal for them. You can either buy six of one or half a dozen of the same.

By primarily resorting to political action as a minority the unions were destined to fail. If Blacks had just sat back and waited for the political process to give them equal rights they would still be sitting at the back of the bus. As a minority they would remain unheard, ingnored, irrelevant. It was through protests and economic disruptions that the blacks were heard. No doubt the spectre of the Black Panthers and other radical elements made the much more modest demands of Dr. Martin Luther King more appealing to all. But without the disruptions in the streets, nothing would have happened in DC.

 

[Wretched Wrench]

As we can see from recent press releases our unions are participating in efforts to "delay" funding of our pensions. In effect allowing them to "increase underfunding". Why would they do that when they know that the larger that obligation becomes the less likely that it will ever be paid?

I am totally amazed (read slack-jawed and glassy-eyed) that AA thinks they will get a claque (on their own time, of course) to show up in Washington at their behest to do their bidding. This bill will allow the company to steal even more of our pensions over a much longer period of time, while upper management has a BK-proof pension slush fund, as do TWU officials.

This is not unlike the Captain's table group rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, knowing full well that they have the only lifeboat.