Envoy MIA base to close

CFIscare

CFIscare

Well-Known Member
Per the VP of Flight Ops (F/O Winkley), who just announced it in MIA.

766.gif
 
This is sad...and such a shame. Especially because all of this could have been avoided. I never realized how many impressionable people there are at this company...and how easily they were lead astray during the TA vote earlier this year. Again, this is very sad and I am at a loss of words. It's not every day you watch as the company you work for crumbles down around you. And to think it was preventable makes it even worse.
 
Dear Envoy Team:

As part of American’s integration work to optimize its network with US Airways, American has informed us that it is adjusting its regional flying in Miami (MIA) to include fewer 50-seat regional jets, beginning in December. American also is moving some of its heavy maintenance operation for wide-body aircraft to MIA.

Envoy is the largest operator in American’s regional network and will remain so after these changes in Miami. However, American’s new schedule and maintenance plans in MIA mean we must optimize our operation and position our employees in markets where they can help us maximize profitability and provide the necessary regional feed for the mainline operation.

Following the Dec. 18 schedule change, Envoy will operate 37 daily departures from MIA, using 12 50-seat EMB-145 aircraft for scheduled and charter services. This compares to 60 flights at the hub as of Oct. 1, using 23 aircraft. The 50-seat EMB-145 aircraft that will no longer be needed in MIA will be used to backfill Envoy flying in other locations, covering the planned retirement of 44-seat EMB-140 aircraft.

As American continues to optimize its network, there no doubt will be other changes that affect us. We must adjust in a way that creates the most efficient and cost-effective operation for Envoy, so we are poised to capitalize on future opportunities. I truly regret the adverse impact these changes will have on some of our people in MIA. These decisions are never easy, but we will continue to make the necessary business decisions to ensure the long-term success of our company.

American’s introduction of large regional jets in MIA represents a growth opportunity for Envoy’s Customer Service employees, as our people will continue to perform ground handling services for all American Eagle branded operations at the hub. Because the EMB-175 aircraft seats 26 more passengers than the outgoing EMB -145s, Envoy will add ground handling employees to support the new schedule.

While no Envoy pilots or flight attendants will be furloughed as a result of this schedule change, we will phase out our pilot and flight attendant bases in MIA. This will begin in January 2015, with closure complete by April 2015. Envoy flying in MIA will be staffed out of our DFW crew bases, bridging that flying over cities served by both MIA and DFW. Displacements will be handled according to our collective bargaining agreements.

To accommodate American’s increased need for wide-body maintenance and following the schedule change, Envoy will no longer maintain hangar space in MIA. Following the schedule change, line maintenance tasks requiring a hangar will shift to other locations in the Envoy maintenance system. Envoy line maintenance coverage and certain overnight check work will continue at the terminal. All TWU-represented employees in MIA who are affected by the reduced maintenance staffing requirement will be advised of positions at other locations within the Envoy system, in accordance with the provisions of their collective bargaining agreement.

We will also work with other employees who are affected by the reduced flying schedule to assist them with applying for available openings elsewhere in the company. If these employees want to stay with Envoy, we believe there are opportunities around our system for them to do so. We are still working to determine the exact impact, but anticipate reducing approximately 50 Envoy positions among all of the impacted departments in MIA, including maintenance, management and support staff.

It is up to all of us to stay focused, believe in our future at Envoy and adapt to these changes in a way that makes long-term sense for our employees and company. We serve American’s customers well and we must continue to provide the same outstanding service that will convince American that Envoy is their best choice, now and in the future. If we work together toward this common goal, I know we will succeed.
Thank you for all you do – for our customers and each other.

Pedro Fábregas
President & CEO
Click to expand...
 
bretthullrampage said:
Ugh...the hits just keep on coming :(
Click to expand...

Don't worry....according to Ray nobody can staff our flying....and we will all be at mainline in three years.

Envoy should become a case study...something future students in College study like the fall of Rome. I don't know what to be more disgusted with right now: the fact that our careers are being destroyed or the fact that so many of our pilots actually bought into the crap pushed by this current MEC.
 
embraer07 said:
Especially because all of this could have been avoided. I never realized how many impressionable people there are at this company...and how easily they were lead astray during the TA vote earlier this year. Again, this is very sad and I am at a loss of words. It's not every day you watch as the company you work for crumbles down around you. And to think it was preventable makes it even worse.
Click to expand...

Don't do management's dirty work. I don't work at your shop, but do some research on what happened after Parker took the reins after the AmWest/Airways combination.

To sit there and believe that a TA vote would define their business plan is silly. For the last 30+ years it has been repeatedly demonstrated that this concept is false.

Would Great Lakes' business position be any different if their pilots worked for free? Would Allegheny be the survivor and Piedmont be gone? Would Comair be thriving and ASA be a distant memory? Look at the XJT pilots, concession, a slight breathing space, and now being parted out.

It's not related to your TA vote inspite of what facts they cherry picked to build a case.
 
Polar742 said:
Don't do management's dirty work. I don't work at your shop, but do some research on what happened after Parker took the reins after the AmWest/Airways combination.

To sit there and believe that a TA vote would define their business plan is silly. For the last 30+ years it has been repeatedly demonstrated that this concept is false.

Would Great Lakes' business position be any different if their pilots worked for free? Would Allegheny be the survivor and Piedmont be gone? Would Comair be thriving and ASA be a distant memory? Look at the XJT pilots, concession, a slight breathing space, and now being parted out.

It's not related to your TA vote inspite of what facts they cherry picked to build a case.
Click to expand...

Here are the facts.

The TA would have provided us with a guaranteed fleet plan of 170 aircraft minimum. It would have guaranteed us the first 60 E-175 purchased from Embraer plus the next 90 options. It would have enhanced the flow through to AA for everybody on property including new hires.

Regardless of anything else, having that contract in place and aircraft arriving is leaps and bounds better than our current situation of NO replacement aircraft, base closures, and no future. And whatever Parker did or didn't do with America West/Airways has no bearing on us. They are mainline carriers and we are a Regional. Two completely different worlds in many ways.
 
embraer07 said:
This is sad...and such a shame. Especially because all of this could have been avoided. I never realized how many impressionable people there are at this company...and how easily they were lead astray during the TA vote earlier this year. Again, this is very sad and I am at a loss of words. It's not every day you watch as the company you work for crumbles down around you. And to think it was preventable makes it even worse.
Click to expand...


Can you explain what you mean by people were lead astray?
 
embraer07 said:
Here are the facts.

The TA would have provided us with a guaranteed fleet plan of 170 aircraft minimum. It would have guaranteed us the first 60 E-175 purchased from Embraer plus the next 90 options. It would have enhanced the flow through to AA for everybody on property including new hires.

Regardless of anything else, having that contract in place and aircraft arriving is leaps and bounds better than our current situation of NO replacement aircraft, base closures, and no future. And whatever Parker did or didn't do with America West/Airways has no bearing on us. They are mainline carriers and we are a Regional. Two completely different worlds in many ways.
Click to expand...

So, you didn't really heed what I wrote.

I'm well aware about the mainline deal. What you glossed over is the fact that there were wholly-owned companies and contact lift providers under that combination. Why do you think he would stray from his strategy before?

Also, they say "guarantee", but stuff that, at the moment, is vaporware, can't be tied to a CBA. History is littered with such promises. All it takes is about 30 minutes to draw up a business plan to screw that part of the CBA.

Then management will ignore the pilot protests while placing the equipment at another operation all the while showing the NMB the extenuating circumstances now, and their plan that they intend on executing. However, in the meantime, they park the current fleet, furlough the pilots. You've taken 5 years of concessions, got no upgrade and are on the street. ALPA has moved on, but exerts enough effort not to get a DFR suit. Pilots are scrambling to find an income to not go straight broke. Parker has enough cash to hire a driver so he doesn't get another DUI.

It sucks, but the writing was on the wall. Envoy became a series of quarterly one-time write-offs.

It's a horrible component of a game so rigged against us, it'd be laughable if it wasn't so tragic.
 
embraer07 said:
Here are the facts.

The TA would have provided us with a guaranteed fleet plan of 170 aircraft minimum. It would have guaranteed us the first 60 E-175 purchased from Embraer plus the next 90 options. It would have enhanced the flow through to AA for everybody on property including new hires.

Regardless of anything else, having that contract in place and aircraft arriving is leaps and bounds better than our current situation of NO replacement aircraft, base closures, and no future. And whatever Parker did or didn't do with America West/Airways has no bearing on us. They are mainline carriers and we are a Regional. Two completely different worlds in many ways.
Click to expand...
Our fate was sealed the day AMR filed bankruptcy. Shrinkage was going to happen no matter what. Let's face it, Envoy is a dinosaur. It is a victim of time. Management doesn't was a giant regional. They want smaller and cheaper regionals. If you want to blame the MEC, that is your own prerogative. However, if you are going to do that, you also need to blame the previous MEC. We are here today because of their failures also.

With that being said, history isn't done being written.
 
embraer07 said:
....And to think it was preventable makes it even worse.
Click to expand...

Disagree. All of this has happened before, and it will happen again. Let history be a teacher: We are all pawns in a much bigger game. To believe a vote would have saved or not saved a base, jobs, airplanes, or an entire company is ignorant and narcissistic...and exactly as they would have you believe. Sadly, this is not truly a democracy. While I believe that a small group of inspired people can bring about big change in many situations, make no mistake, we are just numbered gear slingers. MIA was once my base, my heart aches for my coworkers and friends who will now be displaced, many of whom were already displaced out of SJU or LAX. MIA brothers and sisters, I am so sorry, it is a sad day.
 
Back in March, when the TA was actually being voted on, the most common "no" argument that I heard was that the pilot didn't trust management and that the language of the TA, no matter how airtight it may seem, would be torn to shreds the moment it became inconvenient for management. I actually had one Captain tell me, in all seriousness, that I should vote no because the language of the CBA did not matter. He did not seem to understand that if all CBA language was irrelevant, that the company would simply be able to reduce pay scales as they wanted regardless of what our current contract said.

I suppose it makes sense that many pilots still hold to this argument, as it provides a measure of comfort in its fatalism. However, while no one can guarantee that a "yes" vote would have saved the MIA base or kept the CRJs, the language of the TA was strong in its provisions and did not contain any conditional statements which would have allowed the company to backtrack on its promises. Though he did not try to sell the TA, the MEC chair himself stood behind its language during the base visits.

That things turned out the way they did is most unfortunate. I truly wish that AAG had been willing to meet the MEC more in the middle and been able to create a TA which would have had sufficient support from the pilot group. However, the pilot "no" vote was enough to convince AAG to take their business elsewhere and to make Envoy the carrier that would be "right sized" in AAG's regional consolidation.
 
Arguments that simply claim the company will do whatever they want are too simple. It's like saying pilots just mash the Newark button and away we go.

The reality of the process of abrogating contracts is a lot more complicated than that.
 
jtrain609 said:
Arguments that simply claim the company will do whatever they want are too simple. It's like saying pilots just mash the Newark button and away we go.

The reality of the process of abrogating contracts is a lot more complicated than that.
Click to expand...

I agree. Most of the vocal NO voters here at Envoy were certain the company was bluffing during the TA vote. They truly believed the company would place E-175s here regardless of how we voted. Some believed in the bluff...others believed there was a staffing problem at every other Regional and AA would have no choice but to place aircraft here.

The holes in that logic were enormous, and many of us attempted to bring some semblance of logic back into the discussions. We were promptly drowned out. Since then many of those same NO voters have quickly shifted gears and are now claiming they "knew this would happen". I have even seen some on Facebook who still believe that this is all an attempt by AA to "soften us up" for round 4.

The fact that Envoy was going to shrink isn't the issue here. Some keep beating that drum as in a, as jtrain put it, fatalistic march. Of course we were going to shrink...but we would have done so with replacement aircraft and the flying that comes along with those planes. Instead, we are shrinking with no replacements. Even worse, we are unable to hire due to an uncertain future and now we have lost MIA.

There is no way to know if we would have lost MIA anyway, but it doesn't seem likely. We are being replaced in MIA by an airline who operates E-175s..the same planes which we would have been receiving. In fact the talk back during the TA vote was that the E-175s would have been initially deployed to MIA.

The only thing that I believe would have happened even with a YES vote is the CRJs leaving. That is just part of AA's plan of single operating type. But again, we would have been receiving replacement aircraft and newhires. Instead we are withering on the vine and some people still believe the company is bluffing.

Look, I am all for bringing down corporate greed. I believe in Liberal principles and hate the direction this country has been going for the past 30 years...favoring corporate greed at the expense of the Middle class. There is no trickle down. What Doug Parker is doing to Envoy is just a microcosm of what is happening in every company in every industry in this country. The conservative principles of favoring the rich at the expense of the middle class results in this. It makes us all angry, but then I watch as my fellow Envoy pilots turn around and keep voting Republican...it makes no sense, but I digress.

The point is that this is an issue much larger than Envoy and AA. Yes, I would love to bring down corporate greed but poking AA in the eye again and again won't solve that problem. Regardless of anything else, securing a contract in writing would have better placed us for negotiations if/when there was a true pilot shortage. Having the company on the hook for 170 aircraft is better than ZERO. Having a plan and a future is better than having nothing. Ironically, our TA would have been leaps and bounds better than PSA's, Piedmont's, Republic's, and most other Regional contracts.
 
embraer07 said:
I agree. Most of the vocal NO voters here at Envoy were certain the company was bluffing during the TA vote. They truly believed the company would place E-175s here regardless of how we voted. Some believed in the bluff...others believed there was a staffing problem at every other Regional and AA would have no choice but to place aircraft here.

The holes in that logic were enormous, and many of us attempted to bring some semblance of logic back into the discussions. We were promptly drowned out. Since then many of those same NO voters have quickly shifted gears and are now claiming they "knew this would happen". I have even seen some on Facebook who still believe that this is all an attempt by AA to "soften us up" for round 4.

The fact that Envoy was going to shrink isn't the issue here. Some keep beating that drum as in a, as jtrain put it, fatalistic march. Of course we were going to shrink...but we would have done so with replacement aircraft and the flying that comes along with those planes. Instead, we are shrinking with no replacements. Even worse, we are unable to hire due to an uncertain future and now we have lost MIA.

There is no way to know if we would have lost MIA anyway, but it doesn't seem likely. We are being replaced in MIA by an airline who operates E-175s..the same planes which we would have been receiving. In fact the talk back during the TA vote was that the E-175s would have been initially deployed to MIA.

The only thing that I believe would have happened even with a YES vote is the CRJs leaving. That is just part of AA's plan of single operating type. But again, we would have been receiving replacement aircraft and newhires. Instead we are withering on the vine and some people still believe the company is bluffing.

Look, I am all for bringing down corporate greed. I believe in Liberal principles and hate the direction this country has been going for the past 30 years...favoring corporate greed at the expense of the Middle class. There is no trickle down. What Doug Parker is doing to Envoy is just a microcosm of what is happening in every company in every industry in this country. The conservative principles of favoring the rich at the expense of the middle class results in this. It makes us all angry, but then I watch as my fellow Envoy pilots turn around and keep voting Republican...it makes no sense, but I digress.

The point is that this is an issue much larger than Envoy and AA. Yes, I would love to bring down corporate greed but poking AA in the eye again and again won't solve that problem. Regardless of anything else, securing a contract in writing would have better placed us for negotiations if/when there was a true pilot shortage. Having the company on the hook for 170 aircraft is better than ZERO. Having a plan and a future is better than having nothing. Ironically, our TA would have been leaps and bounds better than PSA's, Piedmont's, Republic's, and most other Regional contracts.
Click to expand...


It might be simpler than that. Mainline is probably just sick and tired of 50 seaters. I remember there were a few Envoy folks who said AMR was bluffing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top