<p>Is this another ploy for the giants to squeeze out the employees? What is th likelyhood AA being bought out by another airlines? If it is United/Continental, we, the consumers will be paying higher fares sooner than later.</p>
<p>^^ Dont know - but I would rather see AA merging w/ Alaska Airlines than becoming gobbled up by United.</p>
<p>Over the past 30 years since deregulation, the airline industry has been the best industry for consumers but the worst for investors. When markets are highly competitive, costs to consumers are low but profits are also low. A third of their cost is fuel and with the increase in fuel costs that they have difficulty passing on, it has caused carriers a lot of stress. American will come out of bankruptcy fine, but I will would not invest in it.</p>
<p>Basically, bankruptcy allows the company to tear up its contract with its rapacious pilots who actually only work about 8 or 9 days a month, flip on automatic pilot of 99% of the flight when they do fly, earn $100K+, then sit on their boats and wait for their pensions to vest.</p>
<p>Whatever happened with the Frontier Airlines bankruptcy? They are now flying planes made in Brazil.</p>
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<p>Absolutely true!</p>
<p>"Basically, bankruptcy allows the company to tear up its contract with its rapacious pilots who actually only work about 8 or 9 days a month, flip on automatic pilot of 99% of the flight when they do fly, earn $100K+, then sit on their boats and wait for their pensions to vest. "</p>
<p>Oh please. Those days are long past, certainly for American Airlines. They earn a decent paycheck, but they definitely have to work for it. They took huge paycheck and work rule concessions over the last several years to enable them to avoid bankruptcy. What bankruptcy does is allow AA to be competitive with all the other airlines that have declared it, avoid paying some of their bills, tear up the contracts and walk away from paying their employees retirement. I’m surprised they didn’t do it earlier.</p>
<p>You as a taxpayer should hate this. Another large group of people’s pensions ditched by the company (I’m assuming they will do that) that will now be paid by the Pension Guarantee Fund (you) with skyrocketing deficits. Angry employees to deal with if you fly AA. Though you can rest assured that top management will still get their bonuses (and pretend they don’t know it looks bad, they need to do that to keep that great management that got them into bankruptcy).</p>
<p>Busdriver11… I hope you remember your post number 7…(it’s a good post).</p>
<p>Because the same thing is happening across the US in many different industries…</p>
<p>The average worker is going nowhere to down…and top management does well…no matter what (bankruptcies aren’t necessary).</p>
<p>I know that last sentence I wrote seems in conflict with other posts I’ve written, dstark. But it really isn’t. I just don’t generalize that because some people are doing well, that it is automatically making others do worse. I do generalize that if a company is laying off workers, cutting paychecks and declaring bankruptcy, everyone from the CEO on down should be taking cuts. In some industries, though, they give bonuses for their “cost cutting.”</p>
<p>At my company, the average worker is doing better, moving up, getting pay increases. Along with the top management, and I don’t begrudge them a cent. Now if they were laying people off like crazy, cutting pay and benefits (while giving management huge bonuses), I would be angry. But the company is very profitable, and shares it. That’s the way it ought to be.</p>
<p>Ok…</p>
<p>dstark, you are VERY quiet recently…:)</p>
<p>:)…</p>
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<p>If this is so, there must definitely be very much of a two-tier system. I recall there was a small commuter plane crash in NY a few ago, and there was a mention of the pilots’ salaries and hours, and I recall it was much much lower…</p>
<p>Pilots salaries vary quite a bit. It depends upon the airline you fly for, whether it is a commuter or a major, what equipment you fly, what seat position you hold, how many years you’ve worked for the company, how profitable the company is, and how much you work. I’ve heard of commuter pilots making as little as 15K (and paying their own insurance), to a guy who made 675K last year. Both are at the extreme ends of the salary range. Everybody who is working for a major airline has spent many years either at a commuter or in the military, so in some form or another, everyone works their way up salary wise. Unless your carrier goes bankrupt, lays you off, or gets the work force to make huge concessions. Then it goes the other way.</p>