Good for Life?

[Bob Owens]

On Oct 9 American Airlines sent out a notice via its internal newswire “Jetwireâ€￾ that if they don’t use their perfect attendance certificates, which employees were told would were good for life, by December 31 of this year that they would lose them.

Employees earned these certificates by maintaining perfect attendance for a number of years. The more years the more the certificates were worth. Now once again, after the workers have lived up to their end of the bargain AA has decided not to live up to theirs.

We often hear management types here complain about employees who abuse sick time but here we see the company abusing workers who probably should have used sick but instead chose to go to work anyway so they could get these certificates.

 

[jimntx]

Well, at least we can say that management is consistent in its actions these days.

 

[frontline]

:down:

 

[eolesen]

I handled nonrev ticketing procedures for a couple years in the 90's and don't recall if Perfect Attendance certs had an expiration date or not, but the program ended at least five years ago, if not longer.

It's not like there wasn't an opportunity to use them up in the years since the program ended. And there were fair trade offs -- service charges were dropped or waived for employees with 25+ years, and domestic Y service charges were waived for 5+ year employees, so the certificates weren't worth as much as they were 15 years ago...

Ironically, a lot of people expected lost time to go up after the program ended. It didn't. Guess AA figured out that the people who were getting the certificates didn't need bribery to show up to work as expected...

 

[Birdman]

I recall they did not expire. I had three D1 service charge waved passed I was saving for my parents to fly on but they were never used. As to the program not doing any good I beg to differ. Morale was much higher "back then" for obvious reasons including the P/A program. It's a sad testimony (greed) for any company to label recognition as trivial. I assure you they are paying dearly for their misguided notion's as there is a MAJOR problem with attendance now.

 

[TIME FOR CHANGE]

Your first mistake was having perfect attendance.

:blink:

 

[heckle and jyde]

Bob,
you have got to be kidding me. You havent flown in 6 years to use these free passes? What where you waiting for, the whole system to be Eagles? The country's econemy is headinf south and this is your biggest concern. You must be a Pilot

 

[eolesen]

there are a lot of different ways to recognize attendance. It doesn't have to cost money, and honestly, it was easier for some workgroups to get perfect attendance than others. Fleet, res and other 40 hour a week we's had a tougher time than other groups, including management. Sick as a FA? Put the sequence up for a trade and keep your PA streak running.... Not as easy for the other groups mentioned because at the time, there was no online way to post a shift for a last minute CS.

 

[TWU informer]

there are a lot of different ways to recognize attendance. It doesn't have to cost money, and honestly, it was easier for some workgroups to get perfect attendance than others. Fleet, res and other 40 hour a week we's had a tougher time than other groups, including management. Sick as a FA? Put the sequence up for a trade and keep your PA streak running.... Not as easy for the other groups mentioned because at the time, there was no online way to post a shift for a last minute CS.

Your attempts to defend management positions indicate consistantly either a current relationship with AA, or at minimum an outsourced job that requires you to post and blog in favor of management slants, favors, and views.

 

[Runwaysticker]

Perfect attendance with what you have to show for all your give backs since 2003 ect............please, you should get it..............good guys, always get screwed, sad to say but true with AA.............

 

[Bob Owens]

Your first mistake was having perfect attendance.

:blink:

Not me. I made the post for a coworker who had over five years of perfect attendance and was planning to use them to try and get on an International flight first class. I told him he would have been better off using 5 days a year for those five years and paying the difference- 5 x 5 =25 days at $25/hr =$5000. First class D1 would at the most run him $1000. Come Dec31 his "good for life" passes die and are worth ZERO $.


Perfect attendance is not my thing. As it is we report to work more than most workers, when I'm sick I'm using the days, thats what they are for.

Ironically, a lot of people expected lost time to go up after the program ended. It didn't. Guess AA figured out that the people who were getting the certificates didn't need bribery to show up to work as expected...

It depends on how you want to measure sick time. In maintenance sick costs are going up, sure occurances may have dropped but now people stay out longer. So instead of paying 8 hours sick time twice a year they are paying 36 hours once a year.

 

[AA Tulsa Mechanic]

Those passes can be converted into AAdvantage miles and used for something else before they expire, I cannot remember off hand what else. Details was in last weeks Fast Facts.

 

[Bob Owens]

Those passes can be converted into AAdvantage miles and used for something else before they expire, I cannot remember off hand what else. Details was in last weeks Fast Facts.

Thanks for the info I'll pass it on.

I wonder how many miles it would take to get International first class?

 

[AA Tulsa Mechanic]

Here you go, found it....
Sunsetting Perfect Attendance Certificates (PACs). To assist in reaching AA’s goal towards a
completely ticketless environment, a necessary decision has been made to end the use of Perfect
Attendance Passes (PACs) for travel effective Dec. 31, 2008. Employees will have three options
to redeem PACs they may have in their possession. Use the value of the PAC retroactively
towards an applicable non-revenue trip taken between Jan. 1, 2008 and Oct. 31, 2008. Convert
the PAC to a Form 426 and use the paper ticket for travel before Dec. 31, 2008. Convert
applicable unused PACs into AAdvantage miles before Dec. 31, 2008... A Jetnet Home Page
article will post today... (Corporate Communications)

 

[TWU informer]

How much IT work would it really take to give a "free travel" balance in the EE data file that would still allow the use of the Certificate for travel and still allow AA to be ticketless?

Just because AA wants to go ticketless doesnt mean there isnt another way to allow EE free travel for Perfect Attendance.