BoeingSpotter

Maybe getting the old AA cancer management out of the picture and implementing some new fresh ideas on how to better establish a positive culture for their employees, which in turn, will have a positive effect on customers?.
If they would create their own or at least copy Southwest Airlines culture, they would be a huge success. Can't always just throw money at everything.

Analyst59

I’ve been expecting this for a while. They should be able to get rid of a ton of folks. After the merger the incoming legacy US management added so many positions at the senior and mid-levels it boggled the mind. AA was super lean after the bankruptcy before the merger. Prior to the merger my level 6 senior manager at the time reported directly to a senior VP for example. When legacy US leadership took over AA after the merger they not only added a lot of new managing director and senior manager positions but they brought back the level 7 management position (now called Director) that had not existed at AA since the 1990s (Managing Director could be either level 7 or 8 then). Nowadays you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting 3 or 4 directors at HDQ. This meant lots more meetings and meetings to prepare for meetings that did not exist before. Booking a conference room is damn near impossible the last couple of years. Sometimes you have to meet in the cafeteria it’s so bad. At the lower worker bee levels I would expect many level 3-4 project manager type positions (levels 3-4) to be at risk. HDQ is overrun with those jobs as well. The merger transition used a ton of these folks as did many IT projects many of which are now winding down.

A year or two ago leadership was telegraphing this move citing the fact that Delta’s HDQ staffing was 7% lower than AA’s and that was back then. It might be higher than that now since there was a hiring surge last year to get a lot of IT projects done. I would expect at least a 7% management reduction across the board for all non-front line management. United had a similar HDQ layoff last year but never released the exact numbers of HDQ employees ultimately affected. The reductions for the below director levels will be spread out over many months I expect. They don’t want a repeat of the post 9/11 layoffs where they did it all on one day and there was this trail of tears scene with all these people streaming out of HDQ with their cardboard boxes full of their cubicle contents. Local TV had a field day with that. The staff reduction process has begun already in recent months in a sense as I undertand people have been transferring out of departments but those departments losing staff have not been allowed to replace the headcount. Guess I should have stuck around long enough to maybe get a severance package but I would not have been offered a layoff since I was a data guy. You’re usually always safe if you control the production of any sort of critical data. Glad I retired in any event.

formeraa

Had nothing to do with expense. The TX senators threatened to block the merger unless HDQ stayed in Ft Worth. Parker, who had lived in DFW before, didn't mind moving.

jfinsocal

The logistics of the merger such as integration of reservation systems, employees etc. have been reasonably well-managed. It's probably better to be overstaffed during the transition so management made the right call.