FOS Transactions

[jimntx]

It's the system, Jim. Few industries have anything like our working our schedules by computer. The problem is the "one password does all" thing. There should be two levels: one for simple schedule maintenance, bidding and trading. This would include putting oneself into and out of TT mode, waiving 30 in 7 when necessary, viewing and making entries on Hiboard and viewing and manipulating open time. A second level would give access to SS numbers, medical benefit stuff, and all those other things which really should not be open to anyone.

Under my proposal I could give my first level password to friends and/or TT services so they could see where I was or do schedule maintenance I requested. The Top Secret stuff could remain hidden.

It probably won't happen, however. It would take programming costs. It's clear from the company memos stating that TT services can do their jobs without passwords that the company doesn't have a clue as to how the system works or is used in real life.

MK (in IAH)

You are missing the point that AMR no longer owns SABRE. Just as you get charged for every drop of gas you pump into your car, AMR gets charged for every single time someone hits enter. As I said earlier, something serious is going on when one of my classmates gets a message that there were 17,000 transactions recorded under her id in January.

Also, SABRE is a 50 year old computer system. It first came on line in the 1960s. At the time it was held up as THE distributed computer system. AMR, through SABRE, was the first company to put a computer terminal in a travel agent's office which connected them to AMR's total reservation system. (It was pure coincidence that when an agent entered a desired departure and destination station and a travel date, the computer showed all the AA possibilities first before showing other airline choices. )

To partition bidding/trip trading/etc. from the rest of DECS and RES would cost enormous amounts of money. SABRE will be replaced within the next 10 years. That amount of money is NOT going to be spent.

Besides, it doesn't matter. The corporate security rule is that you do not give your logonid and password to anyone including your best friend f/a. To do so is a termination offense. It matters not that you think it is silly, ridiculous, or Gestapo-like tactics. It is what it is. As I said, it is standard in just about every company in the world. Why do f/as keep trying to come up with justifications for ignoring or violating rules they don't happen to agree with or see the purpose for? It seems to be almost genetic. I guess it goes with the territory in a job where the employee can choose not to come to work for years on end and still has to be considered an employee. 🙄

I know of a case at a former employer where the company lost over 7 million dollars in a scheme that started with an employee giving their password to someone else. That person gave the password to someone outside the company. All perfectly "innocent." By the way, the employee lost her job and a civil suit brought by the company because she knowingly violated corporate policy. At that company, on the first day on the job, we had to sign and get notarized a statement that we understood that giving our computer access codes to anyone was a termination offense and prosecutable. I'm just saying...

 

[BigBangTheory]

The bottom line is AA makes money on all trip trade services. You have to pay $1500 to AA for a trade license. The more clients a trade service has, the more money AA makes on the service. This is a FACT!

 

[Skymess]

The bottom line is AA makes money on all trip trade services. You have to pay $1500 to AA for a trade license. The more clients a trade service has, the more money AA makes or the service. This is a FACT!

Exactly. The bottom line is AA is preventing us access to our job. They are essentially charging us to come to work by forcing us to use a trade service.

 

[BigBangTheory]

Exactly. The bottom line is AA is preventing us access to our job. They are essentially charging us to come to work by forcing us to use a trade service.

That's against the equal opportunity employees act. I smell class action lawsuits coming.

 

[jimntx]

Exactly. The bottom line is AA is preventing us access to our job. They are essentially charging us to come to work by forcing us to use a trade service.

No, they are not doing any such thing. Why not learn to do your own trip trades and use HIBOARD? It doesn't cost you a dime. Besides, trading trips is a privilege the company extends to f/as. It is not a Constitutional right.

To me it is really dumb that there are f/as with over 30 years that don't even know how to bid! The fact that anyone is paying anyone else to do their trip trades means that person just doesn't want to fool with it. Well, I do my own taxes. Other people pay H&R Block. It's a choice. No one is making anyone do anything here. The fact that trip trade services control all the available trips in some bases is because f/as allowed them to control those trips.

There is also the vaunted "flexibility" of the f/a job. No one wants to stop senior f/as from selling their trips to a trip trade service which then charges you to pick up that trip. By the way, the $1500 service fee is very small potatoes indeed. I'm surprised the company even goes to the trouble of collecting the fee. And, the money they collect from the individual transactions wouldn't pay to stock one S80 with toilet paper. The trip trade services would like you to believe that they are paying enormous amounts of money to the company; so, they can justify the fees they charge you.

Just FYI, there are rogue trip trade services that use HIBOARD, charge you for the service, and do NOT pay the trip trade agency fee to the company. They are run by f/as who already have access to DECS; so, "they don't see any reason why they should pay the fee." Another case of I don't believe in the rule, therefore I don't have to follow it.

 

[Skymess]

No, they are not doing any such thing. Why not learn to do your own trip trades and use HIBOARD? It doesn't cost you a dime. Besides, trading trips is a privilege the company extends to f/as. It is not a Constitutional right.

Yes, they are doing such a thing. The company is profiting from trip trade services by selling licenses and charging them a percentage of all trades. As an average FA you don't have access to these trips unless you pay that service. Therefore, AA is charging us to come to work which prevents us access to our job.

The services are not supposed to use HIBOARD. That limits even more your access to those trips unless you pay a service. Even if you do belong to a service there is no guarantee you have access to the better trips unless you have paid into that services coffers for a certain period of time or unless you are willing to pay the premium prices for the better trips.

If AA were truly concerned about computer safety they wouldn't allow a FORMER AA FA WHO WAS FIRED to run one of the largest trip trade services at JFK. Another JFK service is owned by the wife of one of the FAs.

 

[jimntx]

The company is not profiting from the trip trade services, but if that's what you want to believe because all things company are evil and all things f/a are pure and innocent, knock yourself out.

The only reason trip trade services exist is because f/as are too lazy to learn how to do it themselves, (or "thinking about those complicated double trip-trades makes my head hurt, and I have to go lie down"). The company did not demand that f/as use trip trade services, the f/as demanded that the company allow trip trade services access.

Again, trading trips and rearranging your schedule to suit you is a privilege, not a right. But then, most f/as don't want to think that hard. They prefer to just go with "whatever I want to do is my Constitutional right to do." Now, that I think about it. That's probably where the passengers developed that attitude.

 

[Skymess]

The company is not profiting from the trip trade services, but if that's what you want to believe because all things company are evil and all things f/a are pure and innocent, knock yourself out.

The only reason trip trade services exist is because f/as are too lazy to learn how to do it themselves, (or "thinking about those complicated double trip-trades makes my head hurt, and I have to go lie down"). The company did not demand that f/as use trip trade services, the f/as demanded that the company allow trip trade services access.

Again, trading trips and rearranging your schedule to suit you is a privilege, not a right. But then, most f/as don't want to think that hard. They prefer to just go with "whatever I want to do is my Constitutional right to do." Now, that I think about it. That's probably where the passengers developed that attitude.

How do you figure AA is not making money from services if they are charging them to exist? It might not be PUP money, but it's money. It's also costing me money because I can't get the juicy stuff if the trade services have it hoarded and it is not available on the company generated HIBOARD.

 

[BigBangTheory]

No, they are not doing any such thing. Why not learn to do your own trip trades and use HIBOARD? It doesn't cost you a dime. Besides, trading trips is a privilege the company extends to f/as. It is not a Constitutional right.

To me it is really dumb that there are f/as with over 30 years that don't even know how to bid! The fact that anyone is paying anyone else to do their trip trades means that person just doesn't want to fool with it. Well, I do my own taxes. Other people pay H&R Block. It's a choice. No one is making anyone do anything here. The fact that trip trade services control all the available trips in some bases is because f/as allowed them to control those trips.

There is also the vaunted "flexibility" of the f/a job. No one wants to stop senior f/as from selling their trips to a trip trade service which then charges you to pick up that trip. By the way, the $1500 service fee is very small potatoes indeed. I'm surprised the company even goes to the trouble of collecting the fee. And, the money they collect from the individual transactions wouldn't pay to stock one S80 with toilet paper. The trip trade services would like you to believe that they are paying enormous amounts of money to the company; so, they can justify the fees they charge you.

Just FYI, there are rogue trip trade services that use HIBOARD, charge you for the service, and do NOT pay the trip trade agency fee to the company. They are run by f/as who already have access to DECS; so, "they don't see any reason why they should pay the fee." Another case of I don't believe in the rule, therefore I don't have to follow it.

Jim,

You're wrong! The company does profit from Trade Services. I had one when I was based in LA. The more clients a trade service has, the more money the company profits. Its a FACT, my friend. Stop being pro-compAAny! Also, trip trading is a contractual item. Article 25 - Exchange Of Trips is CONTRACTUAL! FYI.. Read pages 226-234 in the contract 🙂 I noticed you had no comment regarding that you were wrong about this.

 

[jimntx]

I repeat. The trip trade services control the trips because f/as allowed them to control the trips. Now, if you're not senior enough to see the advantage (not having to learn how to bid or trip trade, and certainly not flying the line you can hold), well you just don't understand the history.

I agree that the trip trade services are a crime, but it's what has been created in the past, and now we have to live with them. Well, you do. I don't at SLT. There isn't much of a trip trade service at SLT.

And, a $1500 fee???? Please, that's not even a month's take home for a junior flight attendant. And, remember, it's not an annual fee. It's a one time fee for a trip trade service. If the owner sells the service to someone else, as long as the name does not change, there isn't another fee. And, how many trip trade services are there per base? 4? 5? There is one at DFW that has been in business for over 25 years. $1500 amortized over 25 years is $60/year. No wonder the PUP payouts are so large with that kind of dough coming in.

And, it's only in the International bases that you have to pay to pick up a trip as far as I know. Well, unless I call a trip trade service and engage their services to find trips for me or get rid of trips on my schedule. However, out here in the lowly domestic ranks, if you are a trip trade service client, you pay a flat monthly fee for the service, not a per trip fee. Again, the system operates the way it does in International bases because the f/as allowed it to happen that way.

As Mother Reagan used to say, JUST SAY NO!

 

[youbetcha]

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True, it is the FAs who have freely given their pass codes over to TT services that have made it so difficult to track the abuses and violations of our contract. But...it is also the laziness of AA's management who have failed for so long to enforce the APFA contract, along with the TT Service contract, never mind all the possible security violations. Remember, there are non AA employees who have been licensed.
AA has an obligation to protect and enforce the contracts they have agreed to and signed. We have a lega right to trade, drop, pick up, etc. No one but the FA themselves has the right to access open time. It is a violation of many parts of our contract to allow or participate in the illegal access to trips. Plain and simple.
Because of this mess, we have turned into a group that benefits if one has the money to pay to benefit. It is as anti Union as it gets. The same holds true for those who buy and sell slots into international bases. It's not "illegal" as of yet. I suspect it will become that way. It is unethical. wholly and totally unethical and undermines our contractual rights of seniority. By buying and selling, it stops the natural transition of proffers, which in turn, stops the natural transition for domestic transfers. Again, whoever has the money, gets what they want. Sounds a little ScAAb like to me.