Outrageous at best!

[AANOTOK]

American Airlines is paying a lot of money to save money

http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/02/american-airlines-is-paying-a.html

 

[eolesen]

Obscene is more the term I'd use. Unless I'm just math challanged due to not having my coffee yet, that works out to $5600 per consultant per day?... I need to send those guys my resume...

 

[JFK Fleet Service]

Boy that article is just awash with MBA buzzwords.

Cascade plan? Sounds like a cascade of bovine fecal matter.

This place is sunk.

 

[jersey777]

That money could have been used to retain the flight attendants incentive pay rates. Disgusting. The 1%'s keep getting richer. American Airlines is truly a microcosm of what is wrong with this country.

 

[dfw gen]

would some genius explain why Horton and company need to be retained? do they not know the business and what needs to be done? its not hard, how about accountabilty? the boston group was in taesl they totally fu*ked that place up, the "manager happy meal" brought it hook line and sinker. hes at timco.... hey i know why timco couldnt produce the 75's maybe the boston group was helping timco?

 

[texasreb]

would some genius explain why Horton and company need to be retained? do they not know the business and what needs to be done? its not hard, how about accountabilty? the boston group was in taesl they totally fu*ked that place up, the "manager happy meal" brought it hook line and sinker. hes at timco.... hey i know why timco couldnt produce the 75's maybe the boston group was helping timco?

You are right. The Boston group almost destroyed Harley Davidson years ago also.

 

[robbedagain]

they need to be stopped in their own tracks

 

[Overspeed]

they need to be stopped in their own tracks

Cascade sounds like Rise Project. I wonder if they will actually reduce management layers and eliminate low performers like they were supposed to. In the Line, Rise ended abruptly after the other consultants JDA came in and said there was not enough management and that was why the MD80 AD debacle happened. Not true but AA middle management decided to de-Rise (their words) and add management in record numbers. Now DFW has more management and more job titles than ever before and the station still runs like crap. So they shed work (737 and one 757 BC moved) and they keep the same management. So years of mis-management and then they hire the same consultants that developed Rise and they pay another huge fee to run a repackaged and renamed project and expect a different result?

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

 

[FWAAA]

You all act like this has never happened before at any other airline. Nothing could be further from reality.

This is nothing new.

UAL spent a total of $589 million on professional fees during its three plus year bankruptcy, including lawyers, consultants, investment bankers, accountants and other assorted parasites.

After AA imposed the 2003 concessions, some posted here that AA should have filed for Ch11, oblivious to the fact that bankruptcy is a very expensive process and that by avoiding Ch 11, AA saved a few hundred million dollars.

Jersey777's post above hit it on the head: Employees will pay the price of these expensive advisors. With effective, realistic negotiations, some of the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be spent in bankruptcy could have been shared with the employees. Instead, AA's negotiations started off a few years ago with some labor groups chanting "restore and more" (TWU) and demands of huge increases (APA) and claims that AA's demands for cost-neutral or better contracts were evidence of AA's lack of good faith.

 

[BoeingBoy]

That money could have been used to retain the flight attendants incentive pay rates. Disgusting. The 1%'s keep getting richer. American Airlines is truly a microcosm of what is wrong with this country.

While the amount of money spend to "advisors" seems extraordinary when viewed as a lump sum, and is on a per hour basis for most of those "advisors", it's the cost of bankruptcy. However, that does not mean that not spending that money on "advisors" would make any real difference to the employees. For the sake of argument, say that AA will spend half a billion $$ on bankruptcy advisors. Spread that same money over 5 years and 60,000 employees and you get $32 per week or $0.80 per hour for the 40 hr per week employee.

That is the problem the employees have. Even a small difference in pay or the cost of benefits becomes a huge amount of money when talking about a company with the number of employees AA has and over the length of an average contract. And some benefits, like DB pensions and retiree health care - are open-ended, not a cost for a few years.

Jim

 

[limit]

This is nothing new.

UAL spent a total of $589 million on professional fees during its three plus year bankruptcy, including lawyers, consultants, investment bankers, accountants and other assorted parasites.

Then it must be ok.
Next time your auto mechanic charges you an outrageous amount for a repair,don't be upset, after all he did the same thing to the guy before you.

 

[AANOTOK]

Nope FWAAA, it wasn't looked at or mentioned that it had never happened before. Maybe you should look at things from an employee's point of view and understand the frustration of giving so much to so many (i.e this article and others etc...) when they are about to take so much from so many, including their careers and livelihoods. AMR has people in place on payroll who are well compensated to try and figure these things out and get it done yet they spend millions to have someone else figure it out. Why not go ahead and outsource the CEO, CFO, VP's etc... <_<

 

[MCI transplant]

Nope FWAAA, it wasn't looked at or mentioned that it had never happened before. Maybe you should look at things from an employee's point of view and understand the frustration of giving so much to so many (i.e this article and others etc...) when they are about to take so much from so many, including their careers and livelihoods. AMR has people in place on payroll who are well compensated to try and figure these things out and get it done yet they spend millions to have someone else figure it out. Why not go ahead and outsource the CEO, CFO, VP's etc... <_<

<_<------- Good idea!!! AMR would save millions!!! Let this Boston Group run the company! Outsource upper management! AA would probably be better off! After all, like the man said, aren't they getting paid, the big bucks, to do that job? 😉

 

[TWU informer]

So in essence, AMR pays millions in pay and bonus awards for Executives to run the corporation into Bankruptcy, but none of the VP's or their underlings know how to get the corporation out of Bankruptcy, or what to do now that they have filed?

All these consulting firms are doing is combing through the BK Legal filings of other Airlines, reviewing what "they" have done, and then suggesting that AMR do the same. AA used to lead the industry, now we hire consulting firms to tell us how to follow. Pathetic!

Meanwhile, when my job gets outsourced, I get laid-off, when they have to outsource the management jobs, they stay or wait for retirement and nod their heads on the suggestions of the firms hired to do their job function.

Executives claiming they have lost $17.5 million in stock option to the media, while asking us to take $1 Billon Plus in further concessions.

Tread careful, you may implode this wonderful and historical Airline, and the employees will see to it that it is permanent.

 

[Mach85ER]

Dear Tom Horton,

Can you call AirCon and find out what Southwest has spent on management consultants in the last year? Also, I failed to noticed if any of those you contracted with had any experience leading the employees of a labor intensive business of a major airline.

Thank You,

Your loyal cost unit