And AMR Management doesn't expect guys to jump ship or call in sick?

[scooter2525]

(not a bankruptcy attorney)

But you play one on JC

 

[ClearedToThe]

Yes, Not Really at all, AMR is sitting on a 4+ billion in cash, the bankruptcy protection was to force the restructuring of the labor contracts. They're not shorting Mx due to lack of funds.

The "health" of a company has nothing to do with the amount of cash but rather the the company's current ratio. Of which AMR's is not too stellar...

 

[boondr]

Eh, I've been called worse.

You've been called a rapist?( only thing I could think of worse than a politician)

 

[Autothrust Blue]

But you play one on JC

Firsthand experience as a dispassionate observer in one bankruptcy and an employee in another.

 

[Phantom017]

You've been called a rapist?( only thing I could think of worse than a politician)

Aren't they one in the same? Just somebody doing what they want to you with out alot of say-so by you. Usually while telling you how much you'll like it and its better for you this way.... yup... sounds the same!

 

[Autothrust Blue]

Aren't they one in the same? Just somebody doing what they want to you with out alot of say-so by you. Usually while telling you how much you'll like it and its better for you this way.... yup... sounds the same!

You've been called a rapist?( only thing I could think of worse than a politician)

jtrain609 will counsel that the American system, as bad as it is, is still the best way of doing things.

Then you realize:

I suppose American contempt for government is a popular pastime, but I don't really get it personally.

 

[Rage Against The Machine]

http://www.slate.com/articles/busin...kers_or_even_keep_its_seats_bolted_down_.html

The good news for American Airlines is that it’s prepared to announce that by Saturday none of its 757s will have seats that come loose during flight. The bad news, obviously, is that as of last Thursday, American had to cancel 50 flights because 48 of their planes couldn’t be flown safely. The problem, it says, is that spilled sodas blocked the locking pins used on some of the seats, a flaw that can be corrected by using a different mechanism. The deeper problem for American is that seats coasting around the cabin in flight isn’t even the biggest problem it’s wrestling with this fall. American is bankrupt, and the bankruptcy proceeding—while designed to restore the airline to health—has ignited a multifront civil war pitting executives against their own employees.

Things are so bad for American that the hilarious Sept. 29 New York Times op-ed by novelist Gary Shteyngart about his nightmarish experience on a trans-Atlantic American flight actually understated the case. Everyone who flies has an airline horror story or two to tell, but this fall American is demonstrably worse than the competition.

Consider the latest on-time arrival data. About a third of American’s flights were delayed 15 minutes or more, compared to just 22 percent for United, 18.1 percent for US Airways, or 13.5 percent for Delta. Now consider that this was actually a huge improvement over how American had been doing in the second half of September when almost half of flights were delayed.

American’s tardiness isn’t bad luck. American couldn’t get passengers to the airport on time because the pilots who fly the planes didn’t want to get passengers to the airport on time.

This horror story begins with the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing made by AMR Corp. (the holding company that owns American Airlines) last November. Bankruptcy, conventionally speaking, is about restructuring debts owed to banks and bondholders. But most of American’s debt was backed by hard assets like airplanes. What’s more, AMR actually had some cash on hand at the time of the filing. The debts American really wanted to restructure were the implicit debts to employees. As S&P analyst Philip Baggaley put it at the time, the goal was to “reorganize in Chapter 11 and emerge as a somewhat smaller airline with more competitive labor costs and a lighter debt load.” In other words, American went into bankruptcy primarily so it could pay people less.

The bankruptcy process gave American management leverage with which to extract concessions from its labor unions. American got those concessions, except from the pilots’ union, with which no agreement could be reached. So American decided to call the pilots’ bluff and got a bankruptcy judge to void the pilots’ contract.

It turns out that the pilots weren’t bluffing. Organized labor in the United States—especially in the private sector—has been in decline for so long that management seems to have forgotten that a disciplined union can exert a ton of pressure under the right circumstances, even if the legal environment is hostile. American pilots weren’t allowed to strike over the contract voiding, so instead they did something clever: They started following the rules.

If you own a car or a home, you know that you don’t get every little problem fixed right away. Some issues are so severe as to require immediate attention, but a lot of stuff you let slide until it’s more convenient or financially viable to fix. A plane turns out to be the same way. Part of what a good pilot does is know the difference between something that needs to be fixed right now and something that can wait until fixing it won’t cause massive delays or tons of missed connections. When American angered its pilots, they struck back by doing the reverse—deliberately calling in every little complaint, timed for the worst possible moment. The results were catastrophic, and it’s no surprise that the recent improvement in flight timeliness has coincided with a resumption of negotiations. But American doesn’t seem to have backed away from a philosophical commitment to hardball anti-union tactics. In June, it persuaded a federal judge to rule that a new, higher threshold for triggering a unionization vote among passenger-service agents should be applied retroactively, contrary to the interpretation of the National Mediation Board. On Oct. 3, an appeals court judge overruled that call, but the airline insists it’s going to keep fighting rather than allow an election to go forward. If nothing else, American may delay the process until next year in hopes that Mitt Romney wins the election and appoints a more management-friendly National Mediation Board.

To rebuild traveler confidence in the airline, American is going to need to do more than reattach its seats. It needs to repair its relationships with its workers. Labor and management have some divergent interests, but there should be room for ample common ground. At any firm, workers can obtain high wages and job stability if the firm succeeds and generates enough revenue to pay them. And as American is finding out, an airline can only succeed if its workers want it to succeed.

In this sense, the original sin of the American saga is perverse incentives built into the compensation structure of American’s executives. The aviation industry has been consolidating for decades, and last winter it looked like American would likely end up merging with either Delta or US Airways, both of which were interested. A Delta merger would pose serious anti-trust questions, but a US Airways merger would work for federal regulators, and US Airways management smartly sought and obtained a thumbs-up from American’s three major labor unions. But American brushed these overtures off and preferred to continue brinkmanship and independence under the umbrella of bankruptcy.

The reason, as Andrew Ross Sorkin explained in July before the pilots’ situation really blew up, is that CEO Tom Horton and the rest of his executive team can earn a huge payday by keeping the company independent. During bankruptcy, Horton earns a relatively modest $660,000 salary. But “in an odd twist of the bankruptcy process, airline management teams have typically managed to extract 5 percent to 10 percent of the company’s shares for themselves upon exiting Chapter 11,” a stake that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. There’s no particular reason to think this outcome would be better for shareholders than seriously pursuing a merger with US Airways, but it’s easy to see why it’s appealing to Horton. And by the same token, it’s easy to see why the pilots’ union is in no mood to make concessions whose objectives are as much about executives’ pocketbooks as they are about the viability of the airline. Until that breach of trust is repaired, don’t count on American getting you where you’re going on time.

 

[kellwolf]

Aren't they one in the same? Just somebody doing what they want to you with out alot of say-so by you. Usually while telling you how much you'll like it and its better for you this way.... yup... sounds the same!

Only if it's a "legitimate" politician.....

 

[Autothrust Blue]

In this sense, the original sin of the American saga is perverse incentives built into the compensation structure of American’s executives. The aviation industry has been consolidating for decades, and last winter it looked like American would likely end up merging with either Delta or US Airways, both of which were interested. A Delta merger would pose serious anti-trust questions, but a US Airways merger would work for federal regulators, and US Airways management smartly sought and obtained a thumbs-up from American’s three major labor unions. But American brushed these overtures off and preferred to continue brinkmanship and independence under the umbrella of bankruptcy

Remember when we deregulated the airlines, so that we would not have just five large airlines in this country?

Yeah, me either.

 

[TWP]

Unfortunately, management has already achieved it's goal....not paying employees what they are owed. The only thing left to do now is to destroy the entire company and the people who set this facade into motion in the first place will still walk away fat and happy.

 

[etflies]

For those interested, not exactly from an unbiased source:

http://www.examiner.com/article/american-airlines-pattern-of-executive-missteps-and-indiscretions?fb_action_ids=10151121654544858&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map={"10151121654544858":372212932854103}&action_type_map={"10151121654544858":"og.likes"}&action_ref_map=[]

 

[scooter2525]

For those interested, not exactly from an unbiased source:

We must have mutual FB friends because I just read the same article.

 

[Pilotforhire587]

http://www.slate.com/articles/busin...kers_or_even_keep_its_seats_bolted_down_.html

The good news for American Airlines is that it’s prepared to announce that by Saturday none of its 757s will have seats that come loose during flight. The bad news, obviously, is that as of last Thursday, American had to cancel 50 flights because 48 of their planes couldn’t be flown safely. The problem, it says, is that spilled sodas blocked the locking pins used on some of the seats, a flaw that can be corrected by using a different mechanism. The deeper problem for American is that seats coasting around the cabin in flight isn’t even the biggest problem it’s wrestling with this fall. American is bankrupt, and the bankruptcy proceeding—while designed to restore the airline to health—has ignited a multifront civil war pitting executives against their own employees.

Things are so bad for American that the hilarious Sept. 29 New York Times op-ed by novelist Gary Shteyngart about his nightmarish experience on a trans-Atlantic American flight actually understated the case. Everyone who flies has an airline horror story or two to tell, but this fall American is demonstrably worse than the competition.

Consider the latest on-time arrival data. About a third of American’s flights were delayed 15 minutes or more, compared to just 22 percent for United, 18.1 percent for US Airways, or 13.5 percent for Delta. Now consider that this was actually a huge improvement over how American had been doing in the second half of September when almost half of flights were delayed.

American’s tardiness isn’t bad luck. American couldn’t get passengers to the airport on time because the pilots who fly the planes didn’t want to get passengers to the airport on time.

This horror story begins with the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing made by AMR Corp. (the holding company that owns American Airlines) last November. Bankruptcy, conventionally speaking, is about restructuring debts owed to banks and bondholders. But most of American’s debt was backed by hard assets like airplanes. What’s more, AMR actually had some cash on hand at the time of the filing. The debts American really wanted to restructure were the implicit debts to employees. As S&P analyst Philip Baggaley put it at the time, the goal was to “reorganize in Chapter 11 and emerge as a somewhat smaller airline with more competitive labor costs and a lighter debt load.” In other words, American went into bankruptcy primarily so it could pay people less.

The bankruptcy process gave American management leverage with which to extract concessions from its labor unions. American got those concessions, except from the pilots’ union, with which no agreement could be reached. So American decided to call the pilots’ bluff and got a bankruptcy judge to void the pilots’ contract.

It turns out that the pilots weren’t bluffing. Organized labor in the United States—especially in the private sector—has been in decline for so long that management seems to have forgotten that a disciplined union can exert a ton of pressure under the right circumstances, even if the legal environment is hostile. American pilots weren’t allowed to strike over the contract voiding, so instead they did something clever: They started following the rules.

If you own a car or a home, you know that you don’t get every little problem fixed right away. Some issues are so severe as to require immediate attention, but a lot of stuff you let slide until it’s more convenient or financially viable to fix. A plane turns out to be the same way. Part of what a good pilot does is know the difference between something that needs to be fixed right now and something that can wait until fixing it won’t cause massive delays or tons of missed connections. When American angered its pilots, they struck back by doing the reverse—deliberately calling in every little complaint, timed for the worst possible moment. The results were catastrophic, and it’s no surprise that the recent improvement in flight timeliness has coincided with a resumption of negotiations. But American doesn’t seem to have backed away from a philosophical commitment to hardball anti-union tactics. In June, it persuaded a federal judge to rule that a new, higher threshold for triggering a unionization vote among passenger-service agents should be applied retroactively, contrary to the interpretation of the National Mediation Board. On Oct. 3, an appeals court judge overruled that call, but the airline insists it’s going to keep fighting rather than allow an election to go forward. If nothing else, American may delay the process until next year in hopes that Mitt Romney wins the election and appoints a more management-friendly National Mediation Board.

To rebuild traveler confidence in the airline, American is going to need to do more than reattach its seats. It needs to repair its relationships with its workers. Labor and management have some divergent interests, but there should be room for ample common ground. At any firm, workers can obtain high wages and job stability if the firm succeeds and generates enough revenue to pay them. And as American is finding out, an airline can only succeed if its workers want it to succeed.

In this sense, the original sin of the American saga is perverse incentives built into the compensation structure of American’s executives. The aviation industry has been consolidating for decades, and last winter it looked like American would likely end up merging with either Delta or US Airways, both of which were interested. A Delta merger would pose serious anti-trust questions, but a US Airways merger would work for federal regulators, and US Airways management smartly sought and obtained a thumbs-up from American’s three major labor unions. But American brushed these overtures off and preferred to continue brinkmanship and independence under the umbrella of bankruptcy.

The reason, as Andrew Ross Sorkin explained in July before the pilots’ situation really blew up, is that CEO Tom Horton and the rest of his executive team can earn a huge payday by keeping the company independent. During bankruptcy, Horton earns a relatively modest $660,000 salary. But “in an odd twist of the bankruptcy process, airline management teams have typically managed to extract 5 percent to 10 percent of the company’s shares for themselves upon exiting Chapter 11,” a stake that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. There’s no particular reason to think this outcome would be better for shareholders than seriously pursuing a merger with US Airways, but it’s easy to see why it’s appealing to Horton. And by the same token, it’s easy to see why the pilots’ union is in no mood to make concessions whose objectives are as much about executives’ pocketbooks as they are about the viability of the airline. Until that breach of trust is repaired, don’t count on American getting you where you’re going on time.

I wish articles like this made their way out into the public eye more often!

 

[Pilotforhire587]

For fear of making a robot angry this is per NewsBot.

American Airlines Seeks Extension for Bankruptcy Plan


AMR Corp. (AAMRQ)’s American Airlines, which has agreed to share financial information with suitor US Airways Group Inc. (LCC), is seeking a one-month extension of a deadline for filing a plan to restructure and exit bankruptcy.
American, which faces a Dec. 28 deadline to submit the plan in court, asked for an extension to Jan. 28 in a filing today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The request is supported by the committee representing unsecured creditors.
“American has made significant progress in its restructuring,” said Sean Collins, a spokesman for the airline. “This work, while progressing well, takes time, and American and the unsecured creditors’ committee believe that the proposed 30-day extension is appropriate for this process to continue in an orderly and efficient manner.”
The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline, which will mark its one-year anniversary in bankruptcy next month, is working with creditors on a “collaborative review” of strategic alternatives and has reached a so-called nondisclosure agreement with US Airways “and others,” it said in the filing. US Airways backs a tie-up of the companies.
Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents American’s pilots, called the request for an extension “a positive” given the company’s agreement with Tempe, Arizona-based US Airways.
Parties Talking

“Considering US Air and AMR are in discussions, we are pleased and can only assume that as long as the parties are talking, progress is being made,” he said in a phone interview.
The union for American’s flight attendants told members in an e-mail that it is encouraged that US Airways and American “have had substantive conversations and hopeful that this extension will bring us another step closer to a merger inside bankruptcy.”
American said in the court filing that it also needs time to continue negotiations with pilots on a new labor contract and analyze $292 billion in claims filed against the company as part of the bankruptcy case.
The approval of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane, who is overseeing AMR’s bankruptcy, is needed to extend the deadline. If granted, it will prevent others from proposing competing plans with the court.
American said that without an extension it would face “the threat of multiple plans, unnecessary adversarial situations and confrontations and a deterioration of the orderly” bankruptcy process.
The bankruptcy case is In re AMR Corp., 11-15463, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).






I guess there management is having a hard time figuring out how to restructure and still get those big bonuses...

 

[Autothrust Blue]

For fear of making a robot angry this is per NewsBot.

American Airlines Seeks Extension for Bankruptcy Plan


AMR Corp. (AAMRQ)’s American Airlines, which has agreed to share financial information with suitor US Airways Group Inc. (LCC), is seeking a one-month extension of a deadline for filing a plan to restructure and exit bankruptcy.
American, which faces a Dec. 28 deadline to submit the plan in court, asked for an extension to Jan. 28 in a filing today in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan. The request is supported by the committee representing unsecured creditors.
“American has made significant progress in its restructuring,” said Sean Collins, a spokesman for the airline. “This work, while progressing well, takes time, and American and the unsecured creditors’ committee believe that the proposed 30-day extension is appropriate for this process to continue in an orderly and efficient manner.”
The Fort Worth, Texas-based airline, which will mark its one-year anniversary in bankruptcy next month, is working with creditors on a “collaborative review” of strategic alternatives and has reached a so-called nondisclosure agreement with US Airways “and others,” it said in the filing. US Airways backs a tie-up of the companies.
Dennis Tajer, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, which represents American’s pilots, called the request for an extension “a positive” given the company’s agreement with Tempe, Arizona-based US Airways.
Parties Talking

“Considering US Air and AMR are in discussions, we are pleased and can only assume that as long as the parties are talking, progress is being made,” he said in a phone interview.
The union for American’s flight attendants told members in an e-mail that it is encouraged that US Airways and American “have had substantive conversations and hopeful that this extension will bring us another step closer to a merger inside bankruptcy.”
American said in the court filing that it also needs time to continue negotiations with pilots on a new labor contract and analyze $292 billion in claims filed against the company as part of the bankruptcy case.
The approval of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane, who is overseeing AMR’s bankruptcy, is needed to extend the deadline. If granted, it will prevent others from proposing competing plans with the court.
American said that without an extension it would face “the threat of multiple plans, unnecessary adversarial situations and confrontations and a deterioration of the orderly” bankruptcy process.
The bankruptcy case is In re AMR Corp., 11-15463, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).






I guess there management is having a hard time figuring out how to restructure and still get those big bonuses...

No, this is largely in hope that an anti-labor administration will get into the White House.

 

[Rage Against The Machine]

Yes, very true ... this is why this election is crucial, especially for our group.

 

[jdlilfan]

Progress at the Table


Since negotiations resumed, we have met with management every day, including through the weekends. Management is clearly motivated to negotiate, but that doesn’t mean the process is easy or necessarily coming together quickly. Management is willing to meet 24/7 to reach an agreement; however, because of lessons learned from the past, APA is being methodical in how we go about this. We are not working around the clock, and we are making sure members of our team get sufficient rest and an occasional day off to refresh. Our realistic assessment is that neither side is “kicking the can,” and we are both struggling through an enormously frustrating process.

In recent days, management has made a number of encouraging changes to their positions that move us closer to our stated goal of an industry-standard contract we can be proud of. Some of the moves management has made in recent days include:

- Moving the 737-700 and the A319 into the same pay group as the S80 and 737-800
- Improvements to the disability plan
- Agreement to replenish a pilot’s sick bank after an injury on duty
- Agreement that medical verification would only be required for access to a pilot’s long-term sick bank
- Removal of hotel language that gives preference to airport hotels
- A “home base” concept that could allow some commuters to start their sequences from airports other than the cornerstone pilot bases
- A moratorium on closing the STL pilot base until an arbitration process has been completed
- A moratorium on closing any other pilot bases for at least a year
- Agreeing to remove language in the bankruptcy settlement agreement restricting APA’s right to protest management compensation

Decreasing the number of pay bands is a very helpful move as we transition to talks on creating a methodology for the mid-contract adjustment, which sets us up to keep up with our pilot peers at Delta and United. We continue to make progress in contract-language writing — there are many difficult issues to work through in the days ahead, but each of the past several days has proven productive at the table. Our counterparts at United have been locked up in contract-language writing for some time now, so the challenge is not unique to our situation. Our goal is for any agreement presented to you to be in full contract language.

Finally, our advisers have been in talks with parties expressing interest in purchasing the APA claim. One possible outcome is a backstop offer in which APA would have the option to sell the claim sometime between contract approval by the judge and the plan of restructuring approval date. Our advisers are hopeful that such an offer could equate to an average six-figure pay-out per pilot.

Talks will continue every day for the foreseeable future. We will update you as events warrant.

Your APA Negotiating Committee