I have no idea if it’s happened at AA. But it happened at Eagle when I was there. The union sent out an email to remind everyone to turn off trip trading when you were done.
I guess because in Sabre you can see who has what trip and SABRE stalking is a thing I guess. You can look up anyone’s schedule if you know their employee number. If someone has a trip that you want and you don’t want a trip on your schedule, you could take their trip off their schedule and slip them your unwanted trip if they left their Trip Trade status ON. You wouldn’t know their status until you tried. If it was off, the trade just gets denied and no harm no foul. If it was on, the trade gets processed.
From what I remember the company wouldn’t/didn’t do anything about it and the guy who did it got away with it and the guy who had the trips poached off him was now responsible for the trips that were put on his schedule by the other pilot. hence the union email about turning trip trade off when you weren’t actively trading trips.
Pretty crappy isn’t it.
But AA isn’t Eagle so who knows.