American’s pilots take look at productivity

[AAStew]

Yes theoretically you are right. But our argument has never been about how long the training takes. I have no illusions about how easily I can be replaced.
It is about productivity and how the pilots can help the company while helping themselves.
You should be thrilled that there aren't 10 pilots lining up for your job and willing to work longer hours and take less pay or are there? 😛

 

[eolesen]

The management employees were referred to as Eight Day Wonders. That's the bare minimum to go thru safety-only (evacs, etc), and includes none of the service related training.

So if one had zero pilot or FA experience, one could meet the bare minimum requirements of one job in a matter of days, while another job could take a couple of years to meet the minimum. (Then again, keeping a few people far away in training might be a good thing 🙄 )

Technically, you could hire a pilot off the street with no more hours than they'd racked up to get their original pilots license, as long as they've gone thru the airline's training program.

There are still several foreign carriers who have zero-hour (ab-initio) training programs, which produce line qualified co-pilots in as little as 10 months. NWA used to have a program with Univ of North Dakota for its regionals.

 

[Mach85ER]

The management employees were referred to as Eight Day Wonders. That's the bare minimum to go thru safety-only (evacs, etc), and includes none of the service related training.

Thought it was something like that. I also remember a few failing the most basic safety questions by a few Captains.

With unlimited funds, I think the FO's could be legal with 250 hours, the Captain would still need 1500 for the ATP.
Toss some 8 day wonders in back and I'm moving to the Norad bunker under Cheyenne Mountain

 

[Wretched Wrench]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/051208/southwest_pilots.html?.v=2

The article says, "Pilots at American, a unit of Fort Worth-based AMR Corp., fly around 45 hours per month."

 

[AAviator]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/051208/southwest_pilots.html?.v=2

The article says, "Pilots at American, a unit of Fort Worth-based AMR Corp., fly around 45 hours per month."

Its pretty hard to get an apple to apples comparison with Southwest. They operate a different and by design more efficient model than AA. For starters, they fly 1 type of aircraft. They hire a new guy, he's in school for about a month, and the only other time he's in school (getting paid for not flying) is when he upgrades to captain. All other pay is for vacation or sick time. This continues until retirement.

At AA, we get hired and seat shuffle up to a dozen times before retirement. This doesn't include the intoduction of new fleet types, remval of fleet types, or transfer of flying, all of which are out of the individual pilots control. AA is a more senior workforce, which means more vacation. By law we're required to have 3 pilots on board if the flight is more than 8 hours. For Asia, 4 pilots.

When the company shuffles fleets around the system, it triggers large amounts of training, pulling guys off the line, with pay. Right now, 737, and A300 flying in Boston is being drawn down. Every 737, and A300 pilot in the base will be off of flight status, with pay, in training for at least a month, which represents 75-80 hours a month of "flight time" paid for, but not flown. When they return to the line, they're required to do 25 hrs. of IOE (initial operating experience) with a check airman, which leaves the other pilot who held that schedule at home with pay. We did a monster shuffle in 2003 that put about a third of our pilots into training because of the restructuring post 9-11. You may remember the TWA purchase, parking the F100's, 717's and moving the 757's to the caribbean, and the 737's to domestic.

Retirements drive that number up too, or down depending on which number you're looking at. When a 777 guy retires, his place is taken by (usually) another widebody (767, or A300) captain. Their place taken by a S80, or 737 captain, whose place is taken by a widebody F/O, whose place is taken by a narrow body F/O. That represents over 5 months of lost idividual productivity because of 1 retirement. This simply never happens at Southwest.

I fly 78-82 hours a month. There are schedules that the company builds that only fly 64 hours a month. For narrow body domestic flying the system looks to be about 74-75 hrs a month, 14-15 days average. They can schedule to 78 hrs, and we can opt. to 83. The company has the ability to vja to 83 hours a month but they won't for some reason. This would allow a pilot to fly 88 hours a month.

We're also paid 25% less per hour.

Here's some more info you may find interesting. It compares Q1 2003, to Q2 2005.


American Airlines:
AA Available Seat-Miles have grown a modest 11.779 percent (from 40.274 billion to 45.018 billion).


This was done while the AA fleet shrank from 812 airplanes to 714 (12.069 percent decrease), down from its peak of 905 in 2nd qtr 2001.


AA Revenue Passenger miles have increased 28.583 percent (from 27.838 to 35.795 billion).


Load factor has risen from 69.1 percent to 79.5 percent, an increase of more than 10 percentage points.


AA quarterly passenger revenue has risen 25.633 percent (from 3.394 to 4.264 billion).


Total AMR quarterly revenue has risen 28.859 percent (from 4.12 to 5.309 billion).


The number of AA employees has fallen from 92,200 to 75,100 (an 18.547% decrease).


AA revenue per ASM has risen 11.957 percent (from 9.42 cents per ASM to 10.547).


Total AMR revenue per ASM has risen 12.914 percent (from 9.749 to 11.008 cents).
American Eagle/Regional Affiliates:
Eagle ASMs have grown 61.6 percent (from 1.987 to 3.211 billion) - Eagle ASMs have grown 82.755 percent from 1st qtr 2002 (3 year growth 82.755 percent, 2 year growth 61.6 percent).


The Eagle fleet has risen from 286 to 343 (including the American Connection fleet) - a 19.93 percent increase.


Eagle RPMs have increase 98.884 percent while Eagle Passenger Revenue has increased 72.086 percent. It should be noted that Eagle revenue reporting has changed and is still artificially set according to "industry standard proration agreements".


Eagle load factor has risen from 58.6 percent to 72.2 percent, a 13.6 point improvement.


Eagle employee count has risen from 11,800 to 13,400, a 13.559 percent increase.
Productivity results:
The number of AA pilots has fallen from 12,410 to 9,610 - a 22.562 percent decrease and down 29 percent from a peak of 13,550 in 3rd qtr 2001.


AA ASMs per aircraft have risen 27.122 percent.


AA ASMs per pilot have risen 44.348 percent.


AA revenue per pilot has risen 62.238 percent.


AMR wage/benefit expense per ASM has fallen 29.585 percent from 5.271 to 3.712 cents per ASM.


Fuel cost per ASM has increased 65.67 percent from 1.81 to 2.999 cents per ASM.


This in spite of an 8.198 percent increase in our ASMs per gallon of fuel burned (from 55.55 to 60.104).


AA revenue per aircraft has grown 42.877 percent (from 4.180 to 5.972) while Eagle revenue per aircraft has grown 43.489 percent (from 1.140 to 1.636). Eagle revenue per aircraft is 27.387 percent of AA's revenue per airplane.


The percentage of Total ASMs being flown by Eagle has risen from 4.702 to 6.658 (a 41.6 percent increase).


AA generates 63.05 million ASMs per airplane per quarter, Eagle produces 9.362 (14.848 percent of AA efficiency).


Source:http://www.apapdp.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=476

 

[TIME FOR CHANGE]

AMR wage/benefit expense per ASM has fallen 29.585 percent from 5.271 to 3.712 cents per ASM.

And they want more :down: and more :down: and more :down:

 

[Wretched Wrench]

Its pretty hard to get an apple to apples comparison with Southwest.

Thank you, AAviator for the detailed and informative reply. That 45 hour figure seemed a little low.

 

[eolesen]

Comparing 1Q03 to 3Q05 deserves a few footnotes...

1) MRTC was removed starting in 2Q03, and was largely done by 2Q05. That alone is 4-8% of the ASM growth, and whie all the other employees worked harder for those ASM's, since their workload is load factor driven, it didn't impact the workload of pilots at all.

2) Dehubbing of STL reduced overall departures per day, which caused a slight increase in the average stage length.

3) Depeaking of ORD, DFW, and MIA.

There have also been some other simplification moves, i.e. making ORD and DFW mostly MD80, making MIA mostly 737, which do tend to weed out some of the other inefficiencies from a pilot scheduling perspective.

 

[AAviator]

Comparing 1Q03 to 3Q05 deserves a few footnotes...

1) MRTC was removed starting in 2Q03, and was largely done by 2Q05. That alone is 4-8% of the ASM growth, and whie all the other employees worked harder for those ASM's, since their workload is load factor driven, it didn't impact the workload of pilots at all.

2) Dehubbing of STL reduced overall departures per day, which caused a slight increase in the average stage length.

3) Depeaking of ORD, DFW, and MIA.

There have also been some other simplification moves, i.e. making ORD and DFW mostly MD80, making MIA mostly 737, which do tend to weed out some of the other inefficiencies from a pilot scheduling perspective.

FM,
ASM per pilot grew almost 45%. We've had almost 1000 guys retire, and 2855 on furlough. How can you say our workload wasn't impacted? I guess employee paycuts are meaningless in productivity measurements too?

 

[eolesen]

FM,
ASM per pilot grew almost 45%. We've had almost 1000 guys retire, and 2855 on furlough. How can you say our workload wasn't impacted? I guess employee paycuts are meaningless in productivity measurements too?

Let me start with paycuts... No matter what the increase or decrease in your average workload is, it sucks to get paid less than you did three years ago.

Now... as for ASM and workload impact. Read what I said in context -- the 4-8% increase in ASM's from MRTC being pulled didn't change your overall workload.

I totally agree that if ASM's are up, there is an overall increase in workload; I just don't agree that it is as high as your numbers indicate.

When I first responded this afternoon, I'd somehow forgotten about the overall pulldown in departures during late 4Q02 and 1Q03 due to SARS and Iraq... With that in mind, your comparisons are probably more a little more questionable than I first thought.

But let me focus on workload, since measuring and quantifying workload is directly related to what I do for a living...

Workload for ramp, agents, and res is totally driven by passenger volume and the number of departures. It doesn't really matter how long the stage lengths are -- the interactions required to book/ticket/check-in are the same if its a one hour flight or a 16 hour flight (although there are some added transactions required for international flights).

Pilots, flight attendants, and what few cabin cleaners we have left are the only workgroups who are hit by increases in stage length, and that's where a good deal of the remaining ASM growth has come from:

Qtr	 AA Skd Dptrs
1Q03	193332
3Q03	211769 (9.5% increase vs. 1Q03)

1Q05	208178 (7.5% increase vs. 1Q03)
3Q05	214928 (3% increase vs. 1Q05, 1% increase vs. 3Q03)

With summer vs. summer departures up about 1% vs. 2003, so the only reasonable cause for ASM's to be up is increased stage length.

This is somewhat confirmed in an outlook comment from the 2003 10-K (Annual Report) Filing:

Capacity for American’s mainline jet operations is expected to increase about six percent in 2004, despite removing aircraft from the fleet and reducing mainline departures. This is due to increased efficiencies, driven by three factors: (i) American operated with a low base number of flights in 2003 as a result of the war in Iraq and SARS, (ii) American is adding seats back to its Boeing 757 and Airbus A300 aircraft and (iii) as American realigns its mid-continent hubs and de-peaks its Miami schedule, its aircraft productivity levels will improve.

For the sake of being nit-picky, it's even arguable that by flying fewer legs for more hours, the total workload for pilots and flight attendants may be a wash.

Is flying three two hour segments or three three hour segments really all that more work? The number of takeoffs, landings, and preflights is the same, so my question for you is how much more work it is to be at cruise for another hour?

 

[AC AA LA FA]

Nope, the FAA approved a shortened flight attendant training program, completed by quite a few management employees. No Charm Farm components - just the safety basics. Former ModerAAtor would probably have more details.

The was no shortened F/A training in 93 at AA. The management and support staff on board the A/C over the strike were "pillow pushers" there to aid the FAA trined minimum SCAB crew with pax. The took pax seats for take off and landing and had NO training. The request to shorten traing for AA replacements was denied-we were back to work befor we had to concern ourselves with being replaced......

any way you look at it..the PLIs findings are that the pilots have a fair amount of work to do to meet or beat industry best....now the trick will be to find "creative" ways to make it happen... :huh:

 

[eolesen]

The was no shortened F/A training in 93 at AA. The management and support staff on board the A/C over the strike were "pillow pushers" there to aid the FAA trined minimum SCAB crew with pax. The took pax seats for take off and landing and had NO training.

That's not how I remember it from my chair at SOC (I was too tall to go thru training 😉), but I'll admit my memory has faded a bit since then. Maybe I'll have to go back thru my notes -- I still have two 3" binders full of them after all these years...

The request to shorten traing for AA replacements was denied-we were back to work befor we had to concern ourselves with being replaced......

I recall, you were back to work the day before the first class of new hire eight-day wonders would have exited training.

 

[Mach85ER]

any way you look at it..the PLIs findings are that the pilots have a fair amount of work to do to meet or beat industry best....now the trick will be to find "creative" ways to make it happen... :huh:

I've seen some PLI info that points to pilot productivity info that raises some questions. As posted above, AA has displaced pilots and moved aircraft around the system. Now we are then compared in productivity to SW and B6 (one fleet type) and to Continental (3 types). Other basing decisons come to mind. The 737I DCA base has every trip that starts with a leg to MIA,(another 737I base),leg from MIA home. They require a full complement of reserves in DCA to cover the schedule. As always, I'm sure there are some things we could improve on the pilot side but some seems to be like someone who keeps changing their mind on paint color for a room yet blames the painter for the cost and time needed for repainting.

Most of what I've seen is playing off on the straight hours flown by AA pilots without explaining the differences noted in the above post. SWA pilots get around 82-85 hours in as few as 12-13 days. The average AA guy gets schedule 75 hours in 14 days. As of now, no solutions are offered, which leads me to think that the end result will be 85 hours in 16+ days.

 

[FWAAA]

The was no shortened F/A training in 93 at AA. The management and support staff on board the A/C over the strike were "pillow pushers" there to aid the FAA trined minimum SCAB crew with pax. The took pax seats for take off and landing and had NO training. The request to shorten traing for AA replacements was denied-we were back to work befor we had to concern ourselves with being replaced......

You keep sayin' that, but your recollection isn't consistent with mine (or others). Maybe you're right. OTOH, perhaps age has taken its toll (as age has with me). Anyway, even without any reduction, the safety training doesn't take very long.

 

[AC AA LA FA]

You keep sayin' that, but your recollection isn't consistent with mine (or others). Maybe you're right. OTOH, perhaps age has taken its toll (as age has with me). Anyway, even without any reduction, the safety training doesn't take very long.

..Ok..I am not getting any younger either, it may be my memory as well...but..
I do know this...

the ONLY people WORKING the flights that did go out over the strike, as jumpseat occupying crew members were scabs.
Mgmt/admin employees were onboard some flights pushing pillows... The replacement workers were in the course of being trained when Crandall asked Pena if the training could be shortened..(14 to 8 days..?)
The request was denied..
am open to any further info on the topic...as I said I have a fairly good case of jethimerz myself....

this very well could all just been a dream..... :blink: