Ok, so you don't trust the numbers that corporations file with the SEC, despite potential prison terms for the executives under Sarb-Ox.
The fact is that the information is limited and does not tell the whole story. Its not inteneded to provide labor the information they can use in negotiations, thats not the purpose of the report.
Now lets go after the rest of the strawmen in your post. The fact that you are resorting to such tactics indicates to me that you feel you are losing the arguement.
What about all the other numbers filed with the BTS? Are they fraudulent, also? I don't know what potential penalties await airlines that falsify data filed with the BTS, but I'm going to assume that there are some, and further, without any evidence that AA is falsifying its submissions, that the AA data is accurate. Of course, as Swelbar points out, occasionally the data don't make any sense on their face, and it seems fair for him to point out those instances.
"Falsifying" and "fruadulent" are strong words and I dont see where I used them, however information can be factual but presented in a way thats misleading. Also the limited scope of the information and the lack of details leaves a lot of room for manipulation from a labor standpoint as far as information we can use in negotiiations, as you admit in your praise of Swellbar, the information is not always reliable and is subject to interpretation as to what it really means as far as prospects for the company. Anyone who keeps track of spending knows that one of the biggest challeneges is how do you categorize expenses, sometimes an expense can fit into multiple categories and different companies may sort them differently.
I've done the same thing when you're posted numbers that are nonsensical on their face, like your repeated assertion that UAL's outsourced maintenance consumed something like 17% of their total expenses a few years ago. A cursory review of UAL's 10-Ks reveals the impossibility of the number you have asserted. I don't believe that you're intentionally lying about it - only that you're not remembering it correctly or that whomever told you the number was mistaken.
And as I told you then, the information was presented in a slide show to the mechanics at UAL by UAL, I have a copy and offered to send it to you if you provided me an E-mail address to send it to. Its too large to post here. You never responded to the offer and yet you keep claiming that my "assertions" as to what UAL claimed are false because of what you read on their 10Ks. I'm not verifying whether the information is accurate or not, only thats what UAL has claimed but why would they say its higher than it is?
You spend an enormous amount of effort here arguing that AA's labor costs are not higher at AA than they are at its primary competitors. Why you continue to do so puzzles me. It's almost like arguing about the principles of flight ("lift and drag and thrust don't matter") or whether the earth is basically round. No matter how you slice it, AA's labor costs per ASM is higher than most other airlines.
I believe I've agued that the way AA defines and presents labor costs is misleading because they dont pay us more per hour than most of their competitors. For 90% of the population when they hear that a company has the highest labor costs they assume that corresponds to the wages paid compared to competitors.I've also argued that its unrealistic for an airline that does most of their OH in house to not expect to pay more for labor than one that outsources. I have not said that when AA itemizes labor costs that AAs isnt higher, isnt higher in totaliity or by ASMs, I've said that our hourly wage and benefit costs are not the highest in the industry and that the statement that AA has the highest labor costs is misleading.
The numbers don't always support your position (we're the lowest paid - woe is us) so what do you do? Claim that every source of data about your employer's labor costs is false and fraudulent and indict the character of anyone commenting on that data. I've heard that song before.
Once again, back up your claim where I said the information is "false and fraudulent". I've said we cant rely on it for what we need to know in negotiations. That the information can be misleading, and is often intentionally presented in a way thats misleading, perfect example, what you just did, citing that AA's labor costs are the highest, but what metrics are being used to support that statement? For us the only metrics that apply is what do they pay us per hour. Why? Because thats the basis by which we sell our labor. We dont sell our labor based upon ASMs so the figure has no relevance and it shouldn't. We dont determine how many seats they put on a plane, what equipement they buy , what routes they serve or even how many mechanics per ASM they hire. Are Eagle ASMs included?* That could skew the numbers as well because those planes on average generate less ASMs per worker. So what we end up with are two factual statements that appear to contradict each other, one that says that AA has the highest labor costs(per ASM) and one that says that many of AAs competitors pay more for labor (per hour). You, and management choose to cite a figure that for us is misleading and irrelevant. AA could lower their "labor costs" simply by adding more seats to each aircraft, getting different aircraft, flying different routes or spinning off Eagle, we have no control over any of that.
Getting back to Productivity. AA has basically kept the same structure they always had so when AA looks to measure productivity as far as revenue per employee they are pretty much the only legacy carrier where this figure can be considered accurate. Comparing current Revenue per employee to past revenue per employee shows how much of an improvement AA has actually realized, however competitors can not use this metric because due to outsourcing labor is hidden in other costs such as cost paid to vendors for services that used to be done in house. When a company outsources it does not elimiante the cost of labor, it simply transfers it to another category, there may or may not be overall savings.
* Lets look at Pilot ASMS to illustrate how worthless the ASM figure is as far as productivity.
Lets say we have an Eagle pilot who flies two 1000 mile legs in a 50 seat RJ and we have an AA pilot who flies one 3000 mile leg in a 270 seat 767.
The RJ pilot will generate 100,000 ASMs over the two legs and call it a day having been on duty at least 7 hours.
The AA pilot will generate 810,000 ASMs over around the same amount of time. So is the AA pilot over eight times more productive than the Eagle Pilot? The Eagle pilots did twice as many takeoffs and landings. If we go for the smallest Eagle and compare it to the Largest AA plane the numbers are spread even further. With AMR owning hundreds of Eagle Aircraft its easy to see how these figures would dramatically lower the amount of ASMs generated per worker compared to an airline that does not operate any of these small aircraft.
