American Airlines: Un-American and Uncovered

Our Opinion/ One senior AA pilot’s plea for compassion and respect

By John Strand
Staff Writer

These past several days, an American Airlines pilot who hails from North Dakota began to share some incredibly disturbing documents regarding that company’s financial turmoil and the deleterious impact on pilots, attendants, staff and employees. Now facing bankruptcy, while on the heels of doling out millions of dollars to high-level executives and sitting on reserves of $4 billion, American Airlines’ actions are about as un-American as can ever be imagined.

It’s an American travesty and injustice to say the least.

After September 11, 2001, airlines in general took a financial nosedive. Some went bankrupt. American Airlines, under the leadership of then CEO Don Carty, asked for huge concessions from the pilots’ union, resulting in the pilots approving a 23 percent cut in pay and benefits. Coincidentally, American Airlines executives reportedly received bonuses the next year of some $300 million, and then another $100 million the year after that.

When concessionary union contracts then came due in 2008, American Airlines negotiators dragged their feet for three years. Union workers at AA have been operating without a contract since 2008 and are making 1997-era wages without cost of living increases. In 2011, American Airlines declared bankruptcy. New CEO Tom Horton announced the impending arrival of “shared sacrifice.”

While unconfirmed, HPR has been told that approximately nine American Airlines pilots committed suicide in the past year alone, numbering as many as 40 since the voluntary pay cuts in 2003. The ultimate measure of despair.

Back when times were still good and Reno Air and Air Cal were bought by American Airlines, their domiciles were closed, pilots were forced to commute and share crash pads with other pilots in the same situation. At night, according to one pilot, he remembers often hearing one or another sobbing. These pilots were on reserve, could not see their kids grow up, or be there for birthdays or other important events, or their marriages were dissolving … All while upper echelon executives lined their pockets and, as the saying goes, laughed all the way to the bank.

One senior American Airlines Captain, in a February 11 letter confidentially shared with HPR, gives insight into the current state of mind of the pilots as the company now attempts to terminate pensions for tens of thousands of its employees. The company’s recent publishing of their pilot’s term sheets reflects, according to that letter, a wholesale gutting of 40-plus years of collective bargaining agreements, along with their pensions. That pilot’s letter to half a dozen senior American Airlines pilots was ultimately shared with American Airlines CEO Tom Horton, and we quote:

“I was not healthy, financially, after the pay cuts in 2003 … With Mr. Horton’s ‘term sheet’ before me, I am feeling dumbstruck, numb, and empty inside as if I have been gutted.  I have flown between 85 and 90 hours every month as an S-80 Captain for the last ten years just to try and pay my bills.  I have used my authority as a Captain to make the operation run as well as I can make it within my little sphere of authority,” he wrote.

“Tonight, I signed away the rights to my home of 14 years. I have lost it to foreclosure ... I now have about four to five weeks to find a new place to live, and move all of my stuff. I feel overwhelmed,” the pilot wrote in his letter to management. “As I read the ‘term sheet’ bullet points, I am very afraid for the future of American Airlines. No limitations to Domestic code sharing, no limitations to International code sharing, no limitations to changing the livery on the jets… What I read is: someone other than AA pilots flying Domestic routes, someone other than AA pilots flying International routes, and the planes flying around with ‘One World’ on their tails.”

“American Airlines is DEAD! If Mr. Horton wants to ‘change the culture,’ he sure has a funny way of going about it. I believe that AMR (umbrella corporation for American Airlines) managers are absolutely INTENT on destroying the current employees at American. The ’Sick Jihad’ is still alive and well … If AMR is successful at ramming these unbelievably painful and draconian concessions down our throats, I do not know what I will do.”

“And, if AMR is able to just throw our pensions away as if they never existed, and the PBGC (Pension Benefits Guarantee Corp.) won’t pay out the meager maximum of $54,000 a year until we are 65, how is anyone supposed to quit flying for American, and give up most of what the PBGC would eventually pay us? I am SO disappointed at how little AMR values what I bring to the cockpit every time I sit down. All of my decades of priceless experience, my incredibly good decision making skills, and my ability to continue to fly a plane with system failures and problems which are not listed in any manual, or QRH (Quick Reference Handbook), and land as if nothing had happened. The passengers walked off the plane without ANY real understanding of what had happened, and how dangerous it COULD have been. I am stunned at the callousness of the term sheet proposals, given what I bring to the table,” the Captain wrote.

When HPR received these communications, we felt compelled to speak up. We conclude with final comments from that American Airlines Captain to his company’s senior management:

“I am in the process of filing for personal bankruptcy. I see no light at the end of the tunnel. I believe AMR management has, and will lie, cheat and steal in their effort to destroy the employees of American Airlines, at all costs to the company. It is my fervent belief that AMR management has acted without a shred of integrity toward its employees, while enriching themselves as if American was their personal ATM,” he wrote.

“American is an empty shell of what it was when I was hired in 1986. If ANY military unit was as screwed up and dysfunctional as American Airlines is today, the entire Command Element would absolutely be removed, and new leaders would be brought in. Employee morale is important to the company, and low morale absolutely is a problem for any management team trying to run a business where customer service is vitally important! EVERY military officer should know this in their bones! I have no idea how I am going to cope with the changes AMR wants to make in my life and my job. I have NO HOPE that it will EVER get better!”

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