Beth Mack, head honcho at STL, says the target date is late Feb or early March, with two classes of 45-50 each per month for a total of 90-100 trained per month. I had the head of administration on a DFW-STL flight a couple of weeks ago and he told me the first classes would be international, with an extra week of training for a total of four weeks.
The word is the furlough/LOA thing has to be settled first and then we should have some firm dates by the middle of this month.
42 MD-80's are to be put on AA's operating certificate this year. The conversion will not be as complete as once planned, due of course to costs. Just what differences will remain remains to be seen, but AA FA's will be able to work ex-TWA AC by reading a bulletin, much like what happened with Reno.
The fear around STL is that as our aircraft disappear, they will be used to alleviate the overage at AA and end up resulting in still more furloughs here.
MK