Line stations do not get a weekend premium as they are 24/7 operations. There is, however, a MRP (Midnight Retention Premium).
Line stations get a line premium.
Bankruptcy? What would they have to gain by it that they havent already taken? The Pension? They save money with the DBP at the moment.
They have already reached bottom, not just AA, the whole industry, as far as wages and being able to attract new talent. Half the A&P schools closed their doors, those that remain open have seen enrollments decline drastically and airlines are seeing huge rates of decline by recalls(mechanics, from what I hear most of the pilots and FAs come back). Outfits like AAR cant find 200 mechanics in a town that used to have a UAL maint base with several thousand workers. Where did they all go? Look around, do you see any mechanics without gray hair? Even older workers are leaving before retirement, those that remain cant be intimidated because they dont care. THey've been around long enough to know how to keep busy and produce nothing. If outfits like AAR cant find workers where would AA send its work if they used BK to close the base? Its not like they can wait a few months for those outfits to ramp up, AA is looking at possibly grounding some of its fleet because they are running out of time on them and doesnt have the capacity to keep up. We have over 1200 workers without system protection, they exhausted the recall lists and are pushing all the upgrades, and lowered the experience requirement to ZERO, if outsourcing was such a great deal then why is AA bringing in all the work they can handle and trying to hire off the street?
We are still suffering from "diminished expectations". The company and our union, both the International (note how
their expectations havent diminished based on LM-2 reports) and some local leaders, have successfully lowered our expectations to the point where we look at what other carriers pay their mechanics and say that its a "pipe dream" to expect to make a similar wage!!! What we fail to realize that from a bargaining position we are in the best position we've ever been in. Because things are so bad,(wages, benifits, working conditions, job security) things are good. If we were released AA is not and can not get prepared. NWA, lets not forget that in 2005 we were all making more than we are now, five years of inflation have eroded our pay by roughly another 15%, the measly increases were absorbed by the AA Health insurance company. Over the last five years the FAA has only been issueing enough certs for around 3000 A&Ps/year. Thats for the entire aviation community, thats less than one A&P per public airport in the United States. The FAA does not track active A&Ps, but just going by dates of birth the number of people holding a licence under the age of 70 has declined by 30,000 since 2000. Figure some of those new cert holders are Pilots who get their A&Ps so they can work on their own airplanes and many who get A&Ps never bother getting a job in the industry. Airline wages in big cities cant compete with Utilities and other industries that are looking for people with the same skillsets. Not only will the airlines be unable to attract new workers but they wont be able to reatin what they have. I've seen scores of people with 20plus years leave since 2003.
The shortage is here fellas, this aint 2005, when it took NWA 18 months to find 1000 scabs, they aint out there. We've seen two major mergers recently yet nobody is letting mechanics go. AA hasnt even bothered trying to prepare to replace us in the event of a strike because they know they arent out there anymore, not at these wages. They also know that the government probably would not let us strike because of the lack of system capacity, other carriers could not absorb AAs passengers. So we are probably looking at a PEB, but only if the workers make it clear that the current situation is untenable. Otherwise as far as the NMB is concerned, the status qou is acceptable, they dont care how long this drags on, they are getting what they want, labor peace. The company probably still will not budge, Brundage made it clear where he stood. Right now they may only see a problem in the future, they need to know there's a problem now. Just because we are old it should not mean that we are unwilling to fight.