Every 8 days

[chris perry]

Really? When I was looking at management jobs in TUL, everything in the shops and hangar required an A&P, with the exception of a couple jobs in time & attendance. Anything else with a direct or indirect reporting relationship to mechanics required a license.

So if there are people working there without an A&P, that's a new develoipment. It's possible that someone with an A&P could find nothing better than working for Home Depot (I know at least two of us here had to don the orange apron while also working for AA, and at one point, there were four of us management employees from HDQ working at the Southlake, TX store).

You might be correct they have no line or overhaul experience, but if they hold a ticket, that counts as background more than taking a guy who supervised TWU employees on the ramp for 20+ years or a furloughed pilot.


As for "all the wealth that management sucked out of AMR" comments.... More myth than fact. Yes, a couple people in management got raises. No argument with that. But not a dime of the PUP/PSP came out of the operating revenues. It was all new stock issued for the purposes of meeting contractually required incentive compensation.

If you're interested in being paid in stock, please contact your negotiators. So far in the past seven years, there have been no takers.
[/quote


Yes their are new developments at the company. The director of Maint at DFW has no A&P !!!!!!! does it really matter? Only to he bottom line because we have two now.One to apease the Faa and two for the bonus pool!!!! Making progress!!!

 

[Vortilon]

It's the union way doing business. Let's not forget Dan Akins, the economist hired by the APFA is on hand saying "AA flight attendants are the most expensive and least productive" when you adjust the hours AA flight attendants work and their wages.



Now I feel even better each time I board a new 737-800 knowing that it is providing cost savings to the company on the labor front.




The hogwash from the unions that foreign operated maintenance facilities are not in compliance, have illiterate, incompetent workers is simply ridiculous. I've flown countless segments on jetBlue, Delta, and Continental who all use foreign contractors and I've yet to have a major mechanical problem or felt my safety was compromised. Sometimes the truth hurts and I know the big ego unionists don't like seeing workers overseas undercut their services. I've had more mechanical troubles on your airline due to you AAntique MD-80s and was stranded for a day in 2008 during the wiring disaster, which AA was found negligent and fined accordingly the largest FAA imposed penalty.







You're actually completely wrong because electrical utilities will allow customers to sell surplus power back to the grid at retail rates. Labor is one of AA's inputs and if they can substitue capital investment in new 737-800s and reduce the airlines payroll while better serving customers I say great.




Regardless of a workers direct earnings, they impose a higher cost on the employer through benefits, training, compliance and other overhead expenses. I'd really like to see AA keep the United States but if labor is unwilling to cooperate with management to mutually agreeable terms, I fully condone management's efforts to outsource your work. Time to unload some bricks from the backpack!

Josh

Your statement about the quality of foreign A/C overhaul vendors, could not be more out of touch with reality. I can't tell you how many times, guys I knew that worked at NWA would tell me about their B747s coming out of heavy check. They would have to spend sometimes weeks un-doing the screw ups. Seriously, painting over corrosion in critical areas. I could go on and on. It comes down to doing it on the cheap - and dangerous.

Think about it, an overhaul mech in China, or you pick any 3rd world sh@thole, finds a serious problem that could delay the completion of the check. How well do you suppose that is going to be received. If he wishes to continue working, he best shut up. Something else to consider, some of these facilities are in countries that have large populations of folks that consider us infidels. Guess what, they have access to every area inside that aircraft. Kinda makes me feel warm all over. 😉

 

[Bob Owens]

<_< ------- No, flying an Aircraft ain't like driving your car! That Aircraft, new or not, don't move one inch without a signature from a licensed AMT in the Log Book, that that Aircraft is fit to do so! So what good is it if it legally can't fly?-------- After all, "bottom line" is your paying that AMT to take legal responsibility for the safety of those passengers, and crew! That includes both overhaul, and line mechcanics!-------- Now what's that worth to you??? :huh:

You're right! And from what I hear some of the aircraft are running out of time, which means that otherwise good aircaft will be taken out of service and possibly flights cancelled due to the fact they dont have the mechanics and facilities to keep up!

So I wonder how they would do when we go on strike!!

 

[Bob Owens]

Mr.Bob Owens, most of the planes that are inducted into H/C and L/C checks are flown to Tulsa as revenue flights and then removed from service.I agree that AA management is on a fast track to convert TULE into a MRO only base with MRO wages.
I hope that about 50% of the AMTS will retire or quit when TULE is operating as an MRO at MRO wages.This will leave a huge lack of experience vacuum at TULE and serve AA management right.

Dont misinterpret what I'm saying. While we cant stop the 737s from coming we can stop the continued degridation of the profession. You guys hired on as airline workers and hopefully want to remain airline workers at airline wages. My point was the 737s will reduce workload over time, until they get old, but in between Tulsa will continue to shrink, probably mostly though attrition. The company and others are trying to convince OH that you have to compete for TIMCO and AARs work and that in order to do so you have to work for TIMCO wages. Thats not so, because you arent competing for TIMCOs work, you are primarily working on AA aircraft, if they have "white spaces" to fill up in between our work fine , we can work on others as fillers but we should not be chasing such work by lowering our wages to the levels of outfits like TIMCO and AAR. Quality is our selling point. Seems to me that we turn away a lot of work, even out here on the line where we charge over $90/hr.

The shortage of mechanics is here. The FAA was looking into ways to deal with mechanic fatigue but had to back off, if they put in strict duty time language like the pilots have we would have airplanes across the country going out of service because there arent enough mechanics to work them without running out of workable hours. We have guys that work two full time jobs in aviation in order to make up for the 40% (+) that we lost.

Thats why the company wants to push the A&Ps at the bases out to the line as well. Thats why they offered the line guys another $2 to the line premium instead of Geo. $2/hr would not cover the cost of moving from Tulsa to New York but it would cover moving from AFW or DWH to DFW. They want the guys with A&Ps to leave the bases so they can back fill them with SMAs.

What the bean counters dont seem to realize is that when those other carriers bring their aircraft to AA the expect a superior product but if they push the talent out they wont be able to deliver what the customer expects. Personally I dont think AA is really all that interested in doing very large volumes of 3P work, the liability would extend to AMR, I think they just want to get MRO wages and stick to just doing AA work. They would have an extreme cost advantage over their competitors who pay MRO rates to the MRO (not what MROs pay in wages but what MRO charge the carriers, like when AA charges them $90/hr and pays us $32 for line maint) .

Then they can get a new plane every 5 days instead of 8!

 

[FWAAA]

A new 737 costs around $80 million,(show me where they get them for half price) they are getting one every eight days.

Not all answers are published on the internet in a convenient, easy to read format. Sometimes you actually have to analyze the available data to figure out the answer. Such is the case with new airplane prices. Neither Boeing nor AA will release the actual purchase price paid by AA, but if you read the documents filed with the SEC and pay attention to periodic releases by AA, it's not that hard to figure out.

In the quarterly earnings release conference call, AA revealed that its aircraft capex (capital expenditures) for full year 2010 will total about $1.8 billion, and that's for 45 new 738s and about 11 new CRJ-700s:

We continue to take a measured approach to our capital spending. Our capital expenditures for the third quarter totaled about $675 million including approximately $75 million of non-aircraft CapEx. For the full year 2010 we continue to expect about $2.1 billion dollars of total CapEx including approximately $1.8 billion in aircraft capital expenditures all of which are financed. Next year we expect that our aircraft CapEx will be reduced significantly to approximately $900 million.

At 737-800 delivery are expected to be reduced from 45 this year to 15 in 2011. We have arranged financing for all of these aircrafts subject to certain terms and conditions.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/231219-amr-corporation-ceo-discusses-q3-2010-results-earnings-call-transcript

Assuming that the new CRJs are about $20 million each, that leaves about $1.58 billion for 45 new 738s, or about $35 million each. There are other clues to the actual purchase price, but this is the easiest to explain to you. You can quibble with my numbers if you like - I don't care if the actual price is $30 million or $35 million or even $40 million. The point is that the actual price is probably less than half of $80 million that you alleged. $80 million each? The company must rejoice every time it reads such ignorance.

If a new 737 is 10% more efficient then it would burn 31.5 million gallons per year or $7 million a year in fuel, it would take 80 years for the fuel savings to pay off the aircraft. Even if they only pay $40 million it would take 40 years.

No, Bob. The new 738s burn 25% less fuel than an MD-80 and are 35% more fuel efficient per seat mile, since the 738s now hold 160 seats compared to the ~140 in the MD-80s. So instead of burning about 3.5 million gallons each per year (as the MD-80s do), the new 738s burn only about 2.6 million gallons each per year, saving about $2 million each in annual fuel costs. When fuel goes up (as it certainly will), then AA saves even more per new 738.

Since AA is financing nearly 100% of the purchase price, the only thing that matters right now are the annual lease payments on the planes and whether the fuel savings is enough to pay those lease payments. AA's current average interest rate on its $16.2 billion of long-term debt is 5% annually. Assuming that AA is paying roughly 5% on the new 738s, that would make the annual interest amount about $1.75 million, or less than the average fuel savings. Add in the reduced maintenance expenses (during the new plane maintenance "holiday") and the savings are probably closer to $3 million per plane per year.

Exactly. So what you are saying is I should continue to agree to work for less so AA can buy more new aircraft and get rid of more mechanics, which in turn would create a surpluss of mechanics and drive my wages down even more. Sure buying new aircraft makes sense for the company, but buying all these new aircraft makes it look like the companys debt and expenses are way out of control. What doesnt make sense is for mechanics to agree to fund these purchases by continuing to work for less. They can buy all they want, just dont try and use the expense and debt that decision causes, and their BS insinuation that we are already paid too much, as an excuse as to why they cant pay us what SWA or UPS pays.

I didn't say that at all. All I said is that AA will never pay the guys in Tulsa the same high wages as WN, UPS and FedEx pays their line mechanics - after all, the guys in Tulsa are an in-house MRO and what they do can be done in any city in the world with a runway. It's not AA's new 738s that's holding you back - it's those thousands of employees in Tulsa who already make a lot more than you do (on a regionally adjusted basis). There's not a chance in hell that AA will agree to pay them $45/hr or $47/hr just because you and the other line mechanics in high-cost cities are worth those wages. Your problem is the lockstep arrangement you have with AA's inhouse MRO in Tulsa. What they do is probably worth no more than their current pay, given the worldwide competition in MRO services.

Tulsa workers dont have to compete with MRO wages because they dont work for an MRO, they work for an Airline. If AA got mechanics at MRO wages they would have a huge cost adavantage over competotors who pay MROs a huge markup on the labor they sell to carriers.

You're right - the Tulsa workers don't have to compete with MROs on wages. But since it's obvious to me (and probably to most of the guys in Tulsa) that they aren't going to be paid $47/hr to do what can be done in SIN, HKG, PVG or SAL, what choice do they have?

WN makes do with about 2,500 maintenance personnel plus undisclosed numbers of management. UPS has just over 1,000 mechanics. Dunno how many FedEx has but I'm certain you know. None of them disassemble airplanes in heavy C (or D) checks the way AA does in Tulsa. No airline in the United States pays its mechanics $47/hr to overhaul airframes the way the TUL guys do. I'm skeptical that you have any magic up your sleeve to convince AA to become the first. UA and DL and CO and US don't disassemble their own airplanes anymore, either.

Bottom line is that the new 738s don't have anything to do with AA refusing to overpay its Tulsa employees. On the contrary, new 738s generate substantial fuel and maintenance savings that can be used to increase wages.

 

[eolesen]

Don't forget that the 738's have almost a 1000mi increase in range over the MD80's they're replacing, and presumably are full overwater.

MD80's have difficult time on missions over 1750 miles, but the 738 doesn't seem to have too much trouble doing LAX-BOS, a 2600mi mission. That means higher utilization, and better scheduling flexibility. I forget what the increased payload is. Maybe someone with DECS access can pull up a JDM and pull the EOW and MGTOW.

 

[paul1]

Don't forget that the 738's have almost a 1000mi increase in range over the MD80's they're replacing, and presumably are full overwater.

MD80's have difficult time on missions over 1750 miles, but the 738 doesn't seem to have too much trouble doing LAX-BOS, a 2600mi mission. That means higher utilization, and better scheduling flexibility. I forget what the increased payload is. Maybe someone with DECS access can pull up a JDM and pull the EOW and MGTOW.

becareful what you guys post some of this info if its does come from decs or res is confidental. no matter of how little use it may be to you

 

[chris perry]

becareful what you guys post some of this info if its does come from decs or res is confidental. no matter of how little use it may be to you

I dont fault the company for buying new airplanes.Its something they should have done instead of buying TWA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Clearly a mistake it continues to haunt us today.

 

[BoeingBoy]

I forget what the increased payload is. Maybe someone with DECS access can pull up a JDM and pull the EOW and MGTOW.

As you know, EOW is carrier and even tail number specific, although I don't think there's be more than "rounding error" differences in new airplanes for a given carrier. Boeing lists the 738's max brake release weight as 174,200# and MZFW as 138,300#.

Jim

 

[FWAAA]

Don't forget that the 738's have almost a 1000mi increase in range over the MD80's they're replacing, and presumably are full overwater.

MD80's have difficult time on missions over 1750 miles, but the 738 doesn't seem to have too much trouble doing LAX-BOS, a 2600mi mission. That means higher utilization, and better scheduling flexibility. I forget what the increased payload is. Maybe someone with DECS access can pull up a JDM and pull the EOW and MGTOW.

Here are the Boeing specs for the MD-82s and MD-83s:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/airports/acaps/md80sec2.pdf (page 2-2 of document, page 3 of .pdf)

And here are the Boeing specs for 737-800s:

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/airports/acaps/737sec2.pdf (page 13 of .pdf)

 

[DallasConehead]

You're right - the Tulsa workers don't have to compete with MROs on wages. But since it's obvious to me (and probably to most of the guys in Tulsa) that they aren't going to be paid $47/hr to do what can be done in SIN, HKG, PVG or SAL, what choice do they have?

I wonder if anyone has explored the idea of a separate contract for the OH people? It should be painfully clear, but some here can't see it, with overhead, the costs of the OH operation outpaces other carriers substantially. Spinning off with a separate agreement seems the only answer.

I dont fault the company for buying new airplanes.Its something they should have done instead of buying TWA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Clearly a mistake it continues to haunt us today.

Let's face it, Carty was a bumbling idiot. You are dead on spot, instead of TWA, the entire 80 fleet could have been replaced by now. And probably a whole host of other improvements in every facet.

 

[eolesen]

Let's face it, Carty was a bumbling idiot. You are dead on spot, instead of TWA, the entire 80 fleet could have been replaced by now. And probably a whole host of other improvements in every facet.

Carty is a lot of things (from first-hand experience -- arrogent, out of touch, elitist), but I wouldn't call him an idiot. He didn't make the decision to buy TWA in a vacuum, nor did he do it without a reasonably convinving business case.

Absent 9/11, we might all have a different view on the acquisition and the state of the industry.

Perhaps the MD80 fleet replacement would have been done by the time the fuel spike hit in 2008. AA had to defer and cancel a lot of orders originally planned for 2002-2007. At least 10, maybe 20 738's that AA had paid deposits and confirmed delivery on wound up in Australia flying for QF.

 

[DallasConehead]

Be his white knight if you want. He was an idiot and we are all still paying the price of his screw ups. It takes an idiot to spend the windfall of the late 90s on a failed carrier, instead of just letting it fail and picking the low fruit.

 

[AV1]

Be his white knight if you want. He was an idiot and we are all still paying the price of his screw ups. It takes an idiot to spend the windfall of the late 90s on a failed carrier, instead of just letting it fail and picking the low fruit.

Hate to say it, but you are truly an *****! So far, you have made posts of OH vs. line and now again, bringing up this subject. If your trying to separate everyone, you doing a great job of it. What have you done that is so spectacular? Nothing!

 

[DallasConehead]

Hate to say it, but you are truly an *****! So far, you have made posts of OH vs. line and now again, bringing up this subject. If your trying to separate everyone, you doing a great job of it. What have you done that is so spectacular? Nothing!

There you have it folks.... Oh the humanity!!! So mych for the unincumbered exchange of ideas and thoughts