411a
The AA pilots are currently 30-40percent BEHIND delta and United at the moment so they already have their give back as our contract is in negotiations.
The question was asked of the company directors at the moment on our internal ask and answer forum. The question was what percentage would we have to take across the board to make the company profitable (all employees taking the same percentage pay cut) and the answer was 42 percent. As several groups would be below the legal minimum wage it just aint possible, and management acknowledged it.
Its a REVENUE problem at the moment, not a salary problem that is hounding the airlines. Frankly the model that they use to generate their fares is BROKEN, and even management admits it and says no amount of salary give back can fix it or even significantly change the problem. Structurally HUB and Spoke has just fallen appart because of the large numbers of smaller airlines that are now running point to point (including their own eagles, which aren't profitable either because of their enourmous seat mile costs, but ARE competeing against the mainline) bypassing the hubs.
The problem is basically that the government has interfered via the ATSB. AA didn't shrink in the immediate aftermath of sept 11 because they expected atleast 2 airlines 2 go Chapt 7 thereby producing the capacity drop that fixes the yeild problems. Airlines have enourmous structural costs (the leases on those 42 jets we are parking still have to be paid) and therefore have no ability to retrench to a smaller size in an economic downturn. What has always fixed the airlines in any recession in the past is that 1 of the weaker airlines goes out of business thereby fixing the capacity problem. This time around the government is determined not to allow any airlines to fail, thereby dooming the whole lot of them. What we effectively have is regulation without the ability to set fares by the government. Its a problem. If you want to regulate the airlines, fine regulate em completely and devide up routes and set fares. What you are doing now is just allowing the weak airlines to hurt the strong ones as you keep proping them up. So you have a foot in both camps and though it means well, it is destroying the industry. USAIR should never have been given a loan, and neither should United or America West.
Cheers
Wino