I don't have the ratio of managers to employees, but it's pretty easy to calculate the number of VP's per employee:
WN in 2004: 31,000 employees, 31 executives, or 1:1000
AA in 2005: 75,000 employees, 41 executives, or 1:1830
Real estate... now that's near and dear to me.
In 1993, AA had CP5, CP4, CP2, and CP1. Sabre occupied over half of CP4, a third of CP2, and all of CP1.
When Sabre was spun off in 1997, CP1 and CP4 went with Sabre. That left AA in CP5, 70% of CP2, and 20% of CP4 (which was being subleased from Sabre).
Around 2001, AA re-purchased CP4, and kicked Sabre and EDS out. As Sabre and EDS moved out, people from CP2 started moving in. Once the Credit Union building opened, CP2 was vacated entirely, and sold.
Something else you have to remember is that technology and outsourcing have had a huge impact at HDQ, so it's really not fair to say management was simply overstaffed five or ten years ago versus today.
As more and more automation gets put in place, fewer people have been needed to manage processes which used to require a lot of manpower, including areas like accounting, budgets, finance, and even HR.
For example, where AA used to have a hundred or so people to manage benefits, there are only a couple dozen left, simply by moving a lot of that process to Jetnet and forcing everyone to do it online. Other jobs were simply moved to United Healthcare and Metlife, who were more than willing to take on work previously done by L1/L2/L3 people on AA's payroll.
In purchasing, AA has gone to single source providers for auto parts, office supplies, catering, cabin service and in most other areas. That eliminated dozens of jobs in purchasing, since it was no longer necessary to constantly search for the cheapest supplier of toilet paper or steno pads.
Ooops. Thanks to voicemail and email, steno pads aren't used much anymore, since there are barely any secretaries left. That alone emptied out about 80 to 100 cubes.
Those are just a few examples of why it was possible to consolidate into fewer buildings, and it's pretty typical of what's happening with white collar America. As technology increases, fewer people are needed at all levels.
As for WN? They doubled the size of their headquarters complex over the past ten years. One of the reasons that they've been courted by places like PHX is because they've outgrown what they could build adjacent to DAL, and there's simply not a lot of room left to expand again. They also need to vacate the remaining space in the North Concourse, if they haven't already done so, since it's more and more obvious that the City will need those gates for other carriers at some point in the near future...
