fotographer

sad to hear.. in any business these days... hopefully those young enough still can find something else.. its tough out there....
talking to my wife's friend (AA FA for over 35 years) she is so uncertain of her future.. especially when she is only about 5 yrs out of retiring...

fly747first

As with any large company, there are bad employees at every age group. I recently had an outstanding senior cabin crew BOS-DFW that was infinitely better than the much younger FAs on my DFW MIA leg.

Herb687

Obviously (at least with regards to unionized workgroups; what you say is not true of management). I never meant to imply anything otherwise. Apparently people on this forum have lost the ability to recognize tongue-in-cheek posting... either that or they really do think that the word meaning the opposite of win is "loose."

mvoight

Interesting, of the 19000 furloughed, none will be reservation agents? I would assume with the reductions in bookings, they would need fewer agents

Herb687

I will just point out that over the past few years, Res agents are generally the most competent, friendly, and helpful employees at AA.

On one occasion a rather surly AAngel at the DFW A Admirals Club was completely unwilling or unable to help me buy a "last minute" ticket (I think it was at maybe 75-90 minutes before departure of a domestic flight). Rather than getting ticketed by the supposedly "Premium Services" employee right in front of me, I had to make a phone call to Res. A general agent at Res proved far more able and willing to help than the useless Admirals Club agent.

fly747first

This goes both ways... I have had reservations agents who were beyond incompetent with simple tasks while their AC counterparts quickly and efficiently made the changes I needed. Just last month, a reservations supervisor incorrectly rebooked me in J when I had paid for F on a 3-class A321T and another supervisor had to apologize for the embarrassing mistake made by her male counterpart and she fixed it.

CPRich

I'm curious which employees think their industry should be exempt. Link?

cmd320

The point is airline employees and managers keep lobbying the government for continued bail-out money. I absolutely don't fault them, if I were in that position I would do the exact same thing.

But for the rest of us, the question must be asked, why are we pumping money into this single industry when there are millions of other out there being affected by these shutdowns who are not receiving any assistance.

krazykanuck

Surely at that age she could take a nice early out package and not have to worry about it.

Echoing many of the others, I don’t enjoy seeing this, but at the end of the day the US taxpayer shouldn’t be carrying the payroll weight for a select few companies when most people aren’t getting any special assistance. Also any PPP extension for airlines is just kicking the can another 3 to 6 months down the road and then deja vu.

wrldwide1

Wow. I'll be a lot more charitable than you and hope you're never faced with this situation. Your lack of empathy is astounding.

TWA884

There are approximately 26,000 flight attendants on the seniority list. Only 1,610 opted for the early retirement option. 2,890 took long leaves of absence (over a year long?) and 1,310 took shorter leaves of absence. That left an overage of 8,099. To the best of my knowledge, the furloughed flight attendants will have unlimited recall rights.

cmd320

Sounds like the early retirement option was utter trash. Well done Doug.

saltytheseagull

Preach.

Dallas49er

4thQ 2007 I was National Sales Manager for a Major Financial Services marketing team. 120 in field sales, 75 inside support, 35 inside support staff, 1 operator/receptionist.

3 days before Thanksgiving, the Board directed me-"Be at 125 "head count" 1/1/2008. Here is your "Human" resources contact to "clear thru".

As the boss, I had hired, sat with, traveled with, and built some of "my" team over the past 5 years. The easy thing was picking the 120 who stayed and those who really needed to GOAWAY.

Performance was the 1st criteria. Firing/furloughing/getting rid of dead wood is not easy. I had 131 lives in my hands.

If we had had a UNION, I would have been forced to keep most of the under performers due to seniority. "human resources" was less than zero help.

NET/NET we survived and exceeded goal for 2009 by 275%, exceeded goal for 2010 by 205%, with 71 in field sales (not including me), 25 inside support, 23 inside support staff, and 1 operator/receptionist.

(OBTW-The worst 2 weeks of my life. I personally "released" ALL 111 human beings FTF into the "Holiday season". My Father always said-"If you have bad news, be a man, and deliver it in person".).

Enjoy flying with your UNION survivors.

Antarius

Your selective empathy is astounding.