We''re gonna get it good!

Hopeful

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Dec 21, 2002
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AIRLINES HOPING TO FIND FAVOR WITH REPUBLICAN-LED CONGRESS
11/17/2002 By ERIC TORBENSON / The Dallas Morning News Count airline executives among the cheerleaders for the Nov. 5 Republican sweep of Congress, an outcome that the industry sees as a rare chance to push its legislative agenda. The result gives us some hope that some of the logjams can be broken when the new session begins Jan. 3, said AMR Corp. chief executive Donald Carty, who has made lobbying Congress a top priority for American Airlines. The alternative to the Republican sweep was far more disturbing for airlines, said Ron Ricks, government affairs vice president for Dallas-based Southwest Airlines Co. Had the Democrats kept power in the Senate and won the House of Representatives, Mr. Ricks said, airline re-regulation would have come up for debate, an outcome no carrier wants. I think there are a lot of members of Congress who would like to see deregulation fail, Mr. Ricks said. That''s not considered a problem with a GOP-run legislative branch, and the nation''s carriers are crafting an airline-friendly agenda for the 108th Congress. AIRLINE EXECUTIVES WANT CONGRESS TO: · Dramatically change how carriers negotiate with unions by introducing binding arbitration in place of federal mediation, which can end in strikes. · Allow airlines to buy war risk insurance from the government cheaper than in the private market. The airlines are paying hundreds of millions of dollars more to insure themselves against terrorism since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. · Lower taxes that airlines pay directly to the federal government and the fees they must pass along to passengers in ticket fees. There are early indications that Congress will be receptive to the requests. We''d have to look at what we can do to help them with their critical financial situation and just be aware it could turn further south if there is an act of international conflict, U.S. Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican who is chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee, told the Washington Post in September. Much attention will fall on a bill sponsored by Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Trent Lott of Mississippi that would create a new way for airline unions and management to settle contracts. The Railway Labor Act governs those talks, outlining the formal and often arduous process that can stretch negotiations over several years. Unions can''t strike until the National Mediation Board deems that further talks won''t help, a stage the board rarely reaches. Unions are already upset that President Bush has effectively stripped their right to strike - the strongest bargaining tool they possess - by invoking seldom-used Presidential Emergency Boards in labor disputes. The three-member boards evaluate contract offers from both sides and issue a nonbinding recommendation. Congress can take those recommendations and force a settlement. Mr. Bush used one of the boards to stop a potential mechanics strike at Northwest Airlines in 2001. ''FINAL OFFER'' SYSTEM The McCain-Lott bill would go further than just stopping airline strikes. It would introduce a final offer arbitration system - sometimes called baseball-style arbitration - to settle contracts. Each side would present its last contract offer to a panel. As with arbitration over baseball players'' salaries, one side''s proposal would win, and there would be no splitting the differences. It would effectively gut the Railway Labor Act, said George Hopkins, a history professor at Western Illinois University who specializes in labor law and pilots unions. If the Republicans put it up for a vote, they''re going to go ahead and do it. They won''t pass up a chance to stick it to labor. The unions are gearing up to battle McCain-Lott, which is a dirty word to pilots, Mr. Hopkins said. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants at Fort Worth-based American Airlines will be fighting it tooth and nail, spokesman George Price said.
 
McCain and his buddies are "gunning" for us the organized airline employees.It is obvious from the hearings earlier in the week that McCain wants to drive down labor costs in the airlines.
 
Is he wrong to insinuate as such?
Labor is:
1) The highest cost
2) The most controllable cost

When those two parameters apply to the same aspect of the business do you disagree that something should be done to control that?

Fuel, a huge cost to airlines is only partially controllable, through hedging. However, many hedging contracts are running out and now is not the time to sign a renewed contract.

Leases are somewhat fixed. It's a huge writedown to get out of a contract and many lessors will not change terms because you'd like them too. You pretty much have to file bankruptcy. Then you basically get them down to where AA is paying now.

Airport fees...Airports have a basically fixed cost. 1 flight or one hundred flights, they divide the total cost over the flights. This has hurt carriers since 9/11 because the cost of running an airport has gone up some due to security, but since airlines lowered the amount of flights to match demand, you end up splitting higher costs over less seats. Not a good thing.

What other costs would you like to change? Can they be changed immediately???
 
How about OBSCENE and CRIMINAL executive compensation for starters?
 
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On 1/11/2003 2:55:56 PM flyhigh wrote:

Is he wrong to insinuate as such?
Labor is:
1) The highest cost
2) The most controllable cost

When those two parameters apply to the same aspect of the business do you disagree that something should be done to control that?

Fuel, a huge cost to airlines is only partially controllable, through hedging. However, many hedging contracts are running out and now is not the time to sign a renewed contract.

Leases are somewhat fixed. It's a huge writedown to get out of a contract and many lessors will not change terms because you'd like them too. You pretty much have to file bankruptcy. Then you basically get them down to where AA is paying now.

Airport fees...Airports have a basically fixed cost. 1 flight or one hundred flights, they divide the total cost over the flights. This has hurt carriers since 9/11 because the cost of running an airport has gone up some due to security, but since airlines lowered the amount of flights to match demand, you end up splitting higher costs over less seats. Not a good thing.

What other costs would you like to change? Can they be changed immediately???
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Park all the A-300's and F-100'S yesterday.
Why is AA management going to spend the money for the F-100 cockpit door mods and then 4 months later start parking the aircraft?This is stupid and the kind of waste that kills our efficency and waste too much money.You do not want to get me started on this thread about the stupid decisions I've seen that cost AA billions.The typical management answer:Blame it on labor costs.
 
Do you think the McCain-Lott supporters will be happy with the final result? It may not be what they envision. Oh well, if worse comes to worse, they can always get the government to have the military fill in for shortages of skilled labor like during the PATCO strike, or go the skilled worker visa route.

(Looks like I better dig out my auto tools. I might need them again in the future.)
 
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On 1/12/2003 10:36:41 AM flyhigh wrote:

A mechanic for an airline makes more than a train mechanic and both have similar responsibility levels. If mistakes are made people die as. Justify that. ----------------
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We had a train mechanic come work for us once. He stuck around for two paychecks and quit and went back to the railroad.


Comparing AMTs and train tech jobs when it comes to responsibility and loss of life..........For a train derailment to kill as many people as a typical large transport crash (or even a B1900) there has to be a HAZMAT spill in a po****ted area.

(Wow, that auto-censor is really something. That word that was bleeped outs meaning is, "an area with lots of people.")
 
Let's take a close look at the two responses here:
1) Executive pay. Compare the pay of AMR exec to that of other similarly sized organizations....Carty and friends make much less. Like all airline mgmt, they are underpaid. Now let's compare labor. Take a 777 captain at any airline and compare that to a train engineer. That's a fair comparison. Both require a federal license, both involve safety, both are in charge of a tremendous amount responsibility. In the end, a train engineer contributes A LOT more to the economy. A 777 captain makes a lot more. A mechanic for an airline makes more than a train mechanic and both have similar responsibility levels. If mistakes are made people die as. Justify that. Airline mgmt makes a fair salary by those comparisons!

2)Just park planes. Uhm, not a good idea at all. The cost of parking a plane isn't simply flying it to the desert and done. First, it's a revenue/cost benefit analysis. What plane do we replace the svc with, what cities lose service, how does the skd look (uh, people have bought tickets on F-100 & A-300 flights...where do they go). You can't call up the different work groups affected and just say don't come to work tomorrow...again, how does the skd change and thus the workfore requirements. You obviously haven't got the foggiest clue as to what it took to pull capacity after 9/11. It's a monumental task to do something of the nature you mentioned. The only reason you'd park planes tomorrow is emergency. Even when AA parked the 707's (I know that requires use of the way-back machine to remember) the company was in close range of bankruptcy with other carriers doing ok. Right now, everybody is sucking so you might lose revenue making a similar move so quickly.
 
I'd gather that if you compare total benefits to total benefits (I've done this), you'd find that Airline mechanics make more.

The more important part is that they are similar positions and railroads pay a lower percentage of expenses to salary, wages, & benefits. The need for railroads is much stronger and thus the arguement that airline wages are too high is a valid one. Add tot that the fact that they are the most controlable costs the airline has, they need to be adjusted in downturns so as to maintain a positive margin.
 
From a technological standpoint trains are just one notch above the covered-wagon, while Aviation is strictly cutting-edge. Hence higher salaries are more justified for Aviation personnel over similar jobs in transportation elsewhere.
 
To Flyhigh:

You say that mechanics need to have their wages adjusted depending on market conditions and the sate of the economy. Well, how about pilot's wages coming back down to earth in these depressed times you speak of?

Oh, I forgot, pilots are excutives, or at least they get paid like them!
 
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On 1/11/2003 3:46:40 PM HI-LOCK wrote:

Park all the A-300's and F-100'S yesterday.

Why is AA management going to spend the money for the F-100*****pit door mods and then 4 months later start parking the aircraft?This is stupid and the kind of waste that kills our efficency and waste too much money.

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[/blockquote]

OK, Mr. Rocket Scientist. Let's talk about what is stupid, kills efficiency, and wastes too much money.

[ol]
[li]How much will we be paying per month for all of the captains on the F100 bidline to stay home awaiting a training slot at the flight academy to be requal'd on another type
[li]How long will it take to get them all trained?[li]Lastly, how much traffic do we hand over to competitors because we just cut more than 340 flights per day out of our flight schedule?
[li]How much do we save by not doing the F-100 door mod on 68 aircraft (assuming that the aircraft leaving thru March don't get the mod)?
[/ol]

We can do the math, or we can simply act on your suggestion that we park the F100's tomorrow and not do any more required maintenance.

By doing so, we'll waste a he[span]ll[/span] of a lot more money in the process, be paying a couple hundred pilots to sit on their as[span]s[/span] at home and watch Oprah or Baywatch reruns rather than fly aircraft, be running the Flight Academy on overtime, and giving revenue away to our competitors.

Yep. Spending a million or so for door mods sure looks stupid...