The program was expanded in 2000 or thereabouts. Some brief details...

Employees get travel privileges. The travel privilege is extended to the employee, spouse, and dependent children. Travel is unlimited. A service charge applies to those with less than 5 years of seniority. At 5 years, I believe domestic travel is free in Y. In F, a service charge still applies. These service charges are mileage based, and the 5.00 security fee is included as well. Included with the travel benefit are a bank of 24 one way passes (or 12 roundtrips). This bank can be given to anyone. These guests (which include your parents or inlaws) travel at a lower priority than employees. Additionally, a single employee can designate 1 person to be their registered companion. The registered companion flies at the same priority as the employee, but their travel comes out of the pass bank. Registered companions could only be changed once per year. So if you are the type that changes girlfriends every month, you were out of luck. Girlfriend of flyastrojets was my registered companion. She could take a maximum of 12 roundtrips. If my mother flew 1 roundtrip, that was one less roundtrip that lady astrojets could take. The registered companion program was AA's answer to the complaints of the many single employees who felt that they did not get to maximize their travel privilege because they weren't married. Domestic Partners received identical travel to married employees I think. Although there might be some tax implications...I'm not sure.

At one time, these buddy passes could only be given to family members (cousins, aunts, uncles, children no longer living at home, etc) This benefit was expanded in the late 90s to include anyone. And then the registered companion benefit came along in the 2000 timeframe, I think.

Please keep in mind that except for management at the Director level and above, travel privileges are a benefit only if there is a seat that is not occupied by a fare paying customer. It's standby travel, and the buddy passes are among the lowest priority on the list. The article implies that people could be traveling on buddy passes while an employee might not get a seat. Simply not true with the possible exception of those designated as a registered companion (a fairly tightly controlled program). Buddy passes are not cheap, and to be honest, were often no more economical than buying the cheapest available fare in any given market. AA embargoes their usage in certain peak travel periods such as during the summer to Europe. And frankly, if someone misused them, an employee's "buddy" could be the cause of the employee losing their own travel privileges or their job.

AA has a well-deserved reputation of being a bit strict on employee travel. AA charged employees more than any other airline for standby flights, and unless you've got 5 years with the company, probably still does. I'm not quite sure how that $50 million number was generated, but I'd be interested to know for sure. AA has a cost number associated with employee travel. They know exactly how much extra fuel is burned on a flight if one standby employee is boarded, etc, etc. I have a pretty high level of confidence that if there was a cost problem with employee travel, it would get some attention.

I may be wrong, but I think the employee in this article was making much ado about nothing. Just my opinion, and everyone including that employee are entitled to their own.

On the matter of board of directors travel...I'm not really educated enough on the subject to talk about it with intelligence. Although I believe the article has a misprint... it says director travel was over a quarter million (a fancy way of saying 250 grand) last year. But 1.4 billion over the last 5 years? I can't believe that's correct.