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AA PHX FA Base Expects 700 FAs to Relocate

AA PHX FA Base Expects 700 FAs to Relocate

Old Feb 15, 2019, 9:23 am
  #31  
 
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The affected FAs living in PHX may not need to relocate - they may be able to remain in their current homes and commute to LAX or DFW.

And how many PHX based FAs will remain after the 700 reassignments are completed.
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Old Feb 15, 2019, 10:09 am
  #32  
 
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It's my understanding that the PHX hub has been overstaffed for many many years, dating back to the L-HP dehubbing of LAS. With LUS, PHX crew were often working routes that would typically be flown by other bases, such as transcons from CLT ... and that has continued with routes from DFW since the merger. Now that they're fully integrated, the combined carrier finally has the ability to rightsize the hub.

Right?

Last edited by AAway; Feb 15, 2019 at 10:29 am Reason: typos
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Old Feb 15, 2019, 10:26 am
  #33  
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I have a friend that is a PHX gate agent that commutes from LAS. I imagine this is even more common with FAs, so they would just be switching where they are commuting to.
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Old Feb 15, 2019, 10:32 am
  #34  
 
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Interesting. I wonder if this is the beginning of 'downsizing' the combined airline, similar to what UA did with CLE a few years after the merger. I wonder what the combined airline's visualized hubs are. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up as: LAX, DFW, MIA, CLT, PHL, with ORD and DCA becoming smaller "mini-hubs". Basically, say "so long" to JFK and PHX, I guess, except for the JFK-LAX/SFO flagship transcons. PHX perhaps to stay as a southwestern focus city?

Or, would AA want to keep its pmAA cornerstone hubs and bid pmUS hubs farewell? I kind of get a feeling that the AA of today would more prefer their pmUS hubs, though, especially as pmUS management is running the show.
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Old Feb 15, 2019, 11:06 am
  #35  
 
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Originally Posted by MrAndy1369
Interesting. I wonder if this is the beginning of 'downsizing' the combined airline, similar to what UA did with CLE a few years after the merger. I wonder what the combined airline's visualized hubs are. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up as: LAX, DFW, MIA, CLT, PHL, with ORD and DCA becoming smaller "mini-hubs". Basically, say "so long" to JFK and PHX, I guess, except for the JFK-LAX/SFO flagship transcons. PHX perhaps to stay as a southwestern focus city?

Or, would AA want to keep its pmAA cornerstone hubs and bid pmUS hubs farewell? I kind of get a feeling that the AA of today would more prefer their pmUS hubs, though, especially as pmUS management is running the show.
Downsizing, or "right sizing" has been going on for the last several years. JFK and ORD to a lessor extent have seen big cuts - I expect NYC (especially JFK) will also see significant staff reductions in the near future. PHX saw some adjustments too, but PHX also gained new routes.
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Old Feb 15, 2019, 2:46 pm
  #36  
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Originally Posted by dantheflyingman
In all seriousness, SEA has some intriguing possibilities with AS likely joining OW as a Connect member.
AA does next to zero international flying out of PHX, just LHR and Mexico, and moving PHX-Mexico flying to SEA would just be profoundly stupid.

Moving a bunch of AA PHX US domestic flying to SEA as a way to be "friendly" to AS by having them join oneworld connect... huh, do you usually try to beat your friends up and rob them? Because I don't. It would be also be profoundly stupid to get into a shooting war with AS AND DL over SEA as an alternate to PHX, at the same time when AA runs away from B6 and DL at JFK, a much larger hub, and when AA is ONLY dueling with WN in PHX.

I mean, really, AA is going to dehub PHX so they don't have to fly PHX-LAS because WN is eating their lunch, but they'll fly SEA-LAS (for example) so they compete against AS, WN, DL and NK? Really? What possible sense is giving up 40-50% market share just so you can fight again to get that market share back in a different city?

There is really no need to AA to do anything in SEA other than serve it from hubs. Done and dusted.

Originally Posted by seigex
As someone who flies from ONT, a small airport with few direct flights, this would be great for my status but horrible for my Friday nights and Sunday mornings.
AA deciding to make SEA a hub as an alternate to PHX will be happening right around when AA orders 20 A380s for the NRT-LIT hourly shuttle.

Originally Posted by tkelvin69
They don't know what they want to do with SEA or the west coast for that matter. Buying smaller airlines, once having wide bodies, an AC at the end of C then a new one in A and finally a couple gates at D. AS and AA have gone different directions and there's really no reason that OW would want them.
Oneworld connect makes sense inasmuch as AA wouldn't have to do anything different than now, but AY/BA/CX/EI/QF could all have their existing relationships with AS cemented into something more solid. It probably doesn't happen unless AA wants it to, but AA doesn't have to change the existing partnership with AS at all on their side; they can decline to sponsor AS, AS elites would get bupkiss on AA (status quo), and AS would have to let AA elites get priority boarding and checkin (whoop-de-do), nothing else would need change.

Originally Posted by Gig103
I wouldn't expect AA to be too keen on seeing AS being a partner again, but Oneworld created the "Connect" model last year and since AS remains partners with six OW airlines (BA, CX, Finnair, JAL, LATAM, and QANTAS) so it seems like a good fit. I don't know if AA retains a veto or not as a founding OW member though.

I don't know much about SEA except it's hub to AS/DL and I dunno why AA would try to squeeze in when they have PHX locked up pretty nicely. Assuming cost of living is a factor in salary negotiations, PHX hubs would be cheaper than SEA too for the crew.
AS is still a partner. If you can redeem AA miles for AS flights (you can) and AS miles for AA flights (you can), it's still a partnership.
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Last edited by eponymous_coward; Feb 15, 2019 at 2:54 pm
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Old Feb 15, 2019, 5:44 pm
  #37  
 
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Rumors of the demise of PHX as a hub have been going on for years and as of yet (what, 5 years in) nothing has really changed. There are some new routes and some have been lost, but AA out of PHX looks a lot like US out of PHX did, which is also quite similar to what HP out of PHX looked like. With the US / HP merger there was a big hope that PHX would start seeing some international destinations, but that never materialized. The same with the AA merger, but nothing happened... again.

Let's face it, PHX is a regional hub (at best) and as an economy is primarily reliant on seasonal tourism for O&D traffic. In other words, cheap fares. Sure there are a number of business travelers here and they do spend money, but not enough to warrant PHX ever becoming a real hub on the order of DFW, CLT, LAX, ORD, PHL, or any of the others. In that way it's very similar to DEN, but DEN has enough business traffic to support some real international traffic. PHX is a gateway to Mexico (at best) and as that it's still a vacation hub.

The LHR flight is promising and if it weren't for the fact that BA did very well here for a couple of years with an additional seasonal 744 service I'd say that AA's LHR flight is an indication of what could be on the horizon. BA isn't running that route this year and when AA made the original announcement it was for seasonal service that effectively mirrored what BA had been doing for the prior 2 years. The recent announcement that the flight will be running year round is encouraging, but I can't help but think that's either a precursor to BA terminating their service as they retire the 744s or a reflection of the fact that many customers are sick of flying on BA's old and tired planes.

I don't think that AA will ever drop PHX as a hub as it's a great place to move a lot of traffic east to west and north. There are rarely WX issues which cause major problems which makes it possible to move a large amount of traffic in from the east and distribute those passengers throughout the western US. Sure, they could do that at LAX, but I don't think that AA has the capacity there to be able to do that.

AA's redistribution of FA bases makes sense on a business level, but I seriously doubt it's an indicator that PHX will lose it's hub status. I seriously doubt that PHX will ever see an increase in service that could make it a premier hub so it's likely to continue as the utilitarian entity that it is now.
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Old Feb 15, 2019, 8:30 pm
  #38  
 
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The article and thread title are misleading. At this point nobody is being required to relocate. The plan is to deal with the overages by way of attrition such as with volutnary transfers, retirements and not filling open positions.
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Old Feb 16, 2019, 6:31 am
  #39  
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The Arizona Republic has a lengthy article with details regarding the move, which is to occur over years naturally by attrition and transfers.

American Airlines needs 700 Phoenix flight attendants to move in the next few years
Melissa Yeager, Arizona Republic 14 Feb 2019 as published on azcentral.com link

In part, with some quotations:

The airlines merged in 2013, but the flight-attendant management systems did not. The two systems could not intermingle, and flight attendants could only be assigned to planes associated with their respective legacy airlines... ...The lack of integration between the two systems also restricted flight attendants from applying for transfers to other hubs.

Now that the systems are fully integrated, the airline has greater flexibility but also a staffing imbalance. LAX and Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport each needs 700 more flight attendants, while Phoenix needs 700 fewer. With 13 airports where American can base flight attendants, it can deploy flight crews more efficiently if some employees are transferred out of Phoenix.

Wednesday morning, the airline notified Phoenix-based flight attendants to watch vacancies at other bases and consider opportunities to transfer. The airline hopes to naturally reduce the number of Phoenix staff over the next few years through attrition and transfers.

(As to the Phoenix hub) Vasu Raja, the airline's vice president of network and schedule planning, echoed Schubert in an emailed statement: We remain committed to keeping the Valley of the Sun connected to the world. We recognize the unique value of Phoenix as a hub for American Airlines. More than 250 daily flights are important to our team members, customers and our business. We are here to stay."

American Airlines has 27,000 flight attendants distributed across 13 airports. Sky Harbor is home to 2,360 of those flight attendants.
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Old Feb 16, 2019, 8:54 am
  #40  
 
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Originally Posted by eponymous_coward
AA does next to zero international flying out of PHX, just LHR and Mexico
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Old Feb 17, 2019, 8:29 am
  #41  
 
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Originally Posted by eponymous_coward
AA does next to zero international flying out of PHX, just LHR and Mexico, and moving PHX-Mexico flying to SEA would just be profoundly stupid.

Moving a bunch of AA PHX US domestic flying to SEA as a way to be "friendly" to AS by having them join oneworld connect... huh, do you usually try to beat your friends up and rob them? Because I don't. It would be also be profoundly stupid to get into a shooting war with AS AND DL over SEA as an alternate to PHX, at the same time when AA runs away from B6 and DL at JFK, a much larger hub, and when AA is ONLY dueling with WN in PHX.

I mean, really, AA is going to dehub PHX so they don't have to fly PHX-LAS because WN is eating their lunch, but they'll fly SEA-LAS (for example) so they compete against AS, WN, DL and NK? Really? What possible sense is giving up 40-50% market share just so you can fight again to get that market share back in a different city?

There is really no need to AA to do anything in SEA other than serve it from hubs. Done and dusted.



AA deciding to make SEA a hub as an alternate to PHX will be happening right around when AA orders 20 A380s for the NRT-LIT hourly shuttle.



Oneworld connect makes sense inasmuch as AA wouldn't have to do anything different than now, but AY/BA/CX/EI/QF could all have their existing relationships with AS cemented into something more solid. It probably doesn't happen unless AA wants it to, but AA doesn't have to change the existing partnership with AS at all on their side; they can decline to sponsor AS, AS elites would get bupkiss on AA (status quo), and AS would have to let AA elites get priority boarding and checkin (whoop-de-do), nothing else would need change.



AS is still a partner. If you can redeem AA miles for AS flights (you can) and AS miles for AA flights (you can), it's still a partnership.
I 'm a bit surprised how long it took someone to point this out. AA and AS are still partners and still code-share on many routes. Their previous stronger arrangement was largely discontinued over the terms of the merger with US; later on, when AS bout VX, it made a bit less sense, so it was somewhat reduced .
My thoughts (and I have no "official" information, would be that AA would likely not oppose AS entry into oneWorld, either as a oneWorld Connect or even as a full member, if the others were tp want not. There's still substantial benefits to that on the West Coast.
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