CBS News
American Airlines cancels hundreds of flights amid staff shortages, maintenance issues
One AA spokesperson was trying to blame it on "unprecedented weather".
No one was buying that BS...
With all due respect, weather is always going to be there. That's not going
to cause hundreds of cancelations unless there's a typhoon, CBS News
travel editor Peter Greenberg said

I'd wager hungry attorneys are warming up their class action engines and
some AA execs will soon be unemployed.

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The airlines can’t seem to get anything right. They’re suffering from a historically huge shortage of pilots and other personal right now. It’s even made me contemplate getting my pilot’s license and follow on ratings, and start a second career. I’m 52 currently….LOL.

Wow. I had no idea. I guess it's lucky I got home at all on Sunday.

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How much emergency COVID $ did AA suck up?

.....Southwest also had 2 consecutive days......of delays......1st was some kind of 'electronic' delay....all flights canceled......don't remember what happened the 2nd day but flights were delayed again.....

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!

OK Pilot and other staff shortage. I understand that,

But they were forced to CANCEL and DELAY hundreds off flights.

Think about this: Cancel and Delay. These Flights were already scheduled.

Who made that schedule and what staff were they planning to use for those flights?

"well, we better get to work, we have to hire and train 60 pilots and 140 flight staff by 11am today"

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Mr645
"well, we better get to work, we have to hire and train 60 pilots and 140 flight staff by 11am today"

then stop wasting your time on the forum and get the work done!

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RgrF
How much emergency COVID $ did AA suck up?

Many billions

CEO got a fat paycheck and they laid off what, 30 % of their employees anyway? And many thousands of crew got Covid.

And now, surprise! Can't get enough people to work there.

A problem specific to this company and its management. Problems were there pre-pandemic.

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space-time
OK Pilot and other staff shortage. I understand that,

But they were forced to CANCEL and DELAY hundreds off flights.

Think about this: Cancel and Delay. These Flights were already scheduled.

Who made that schedule and what staff were they planning to use for those flights?

Flights are scheduled out months in advance and that planes/crews often fly multiple segments in a day. Then add in the limitations on crew hours per day, etc. Crews must have not only enough available time to complete the route but also a defined buffer. One weather delay, mechanical or crew issue can impact multiple flights. Airlines may jockey crews or equipment to maintain service on higher traffic routes over lower ones.

It is in the airlines best interest to keep all of their fleet operational as much as possible. There is a definite crew shortage. There were significant retirements/resignations last year. Airlines have added staff but it's not easy. The training for flight attendants is rigorous and it doesn't take much to fail out of the training. Takes a lot longer to certify pilots.

All the airlines are a mess right now. The super low fares to certain destinations hasn't helped. There are a lot of people traveling who never flew before or rarely fly that are traveling much more.

Rental car companies and hotels aren't much better. There's a serious shortage of rental cars and some of the ones that are available are high mileage for rentals (40,000+ miles). Hotels have limited staff, managers and office staff are cleaning rooms, etc as they can't get people who want to work.

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space-time
OK Pilot and other staff shortage. I understand that,

But they were forced to CANCEL and DELAY hundreds off flights.

Think about this: Cancel and Delay. These Flights were already scheduled.

Who made that schedule and what staff were they planning to use for those flights?

That's exactly what I said to my husband.

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Roswell, GA (Atlanta suburb)

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RgrF
How much emergency COVID $ did AA suck up?

^^^This, and all the bailouts before that. Airlines are so financially mismanaged.

Not to mention the current increase in wages driven by people suddenly realizing that, hey, they do NOT need to accept poverty wages. Airline pilots are NOT 'highly compensated'. Especially in the 'feeder' airlines. Laid off and now being 'called back' at the same slave wages they had before ? Nope.

And don't get me started on staff pay. They don't get paid until the door is closed and the aircraft is in the air. Sitting on the tarmac getting bitched at by entitled jerks ? Free.

Whatever you do, don't change airlines in mid-trip. Book the same airline all the way through. You don't want to get stranded and be out your money for the second leg.

Airlines are hippos walking a tightrope. It doesn't take much to fall and a great deal are out of their hands.

Weather? a day of cancelled flights at a hub can mean days to clear the backlog
mechanical? would you prefer they just tape over the warning light and fly anyway?
Crew? Flight time restrictions, training requirements

In this case, it was a bit of all three.

Weather shut down Dallas, which as a hub has a large number of crews stranded as well.
American just retired a large number of planes for newer models - that requires new servicing and not all mechanics are yet certified. If they aren't certified then they don't touch a plane. Apparently, the certified mechanics are spread throughout the system so if a plane has an issue in Nashville they can fix it. Except all the planes were elsewhere, so there was a backlog.
Finally, the crews were not able to get the training done while they were quarantined. So the numbers of crews that could fly the new planes are limited.

Taken all together - that meant a few hundred cancellations. However, that also represented just over 1% of their flights on those days.

Sounds like a semi-bored travel writer wanting to screw with the stocks levels.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

.....can one go....dumpster....diving....????

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!

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Ombligo
Weather shut down Dallas, which as a hub has a large number of crews stranded as well.
American just retired a large number of planes for newer models - that requires new servicing and not all mechanics are yet certified. If they aren't certified then they don't touch a plane. Apparently, the certified mechanics are spread throughout the system so if a plane has an issue in Nashville they can fix it. Except all the planes were elsewhere, so there was a backlog.
Finally, the crews were not able to get the training done while they were quarantined. So the numbers of crews that could fly the new planes are limited.

I think the issue is that, with the exception of the weather, all of these things can be planned for.
Did they not know they were retiring a bunch of planes? And that not all their mechanics were certified yet?
There was no way to do any training while quarantined? None?

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The answer to your question is yes. Mismanagement in aviation is very common thing. It’s like the bean counters have taken over, and on top of that they can only see shortsighted. They will do the wrong thing until something fails, and then they spent a stupid amount to try to fix it (if even that). I’ve seen some of this firsthand. Plus I have lots of friends that are in the industry. If you don’t have a love for it, I don’t see how can one work in it.

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macphanatic

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space-time
OK Pilot and other staff shortage. I understand that,

But they were forced to CANCEL and DELAY hundreds off flights.

Think about this: Cancel and Delay. These Flights were already scheduled.

Who made that schedule and what staff were they planning to use for those flights?

Flights are scheduled out months in advance and that planes/crews often fly multiple segments in a day. ...

you just proved my point. They scheduled those flights month ago, and they did not get the crews to operate those flights.

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Carnos Jax
The answer to your question is yes. Mismanagement in aviation American companies is very common thing. It’s like the bean counters have taken over, and on top of that they can only see shortsighted. They will do the wrong thing until something fails, and then they spent a stupid amount to try to fix it (if even that). I’ve seen some of this firsthand. Plus I have lots of friends that are in the industry. If you don’t have a love for it, I don’t see how can one work in it.

Fixed that for you. It's not just aviation. It's all industry sectors. Companies are run by well educated people who often can't differentiate between theory and reality.

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space-time

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macphanatic

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space-time
OK Pilot and other staff shortage. I understand that,

But they were forced to CANCEL and DELAY hundreds off flights.

Think about this: Cancel and Delay. These Flights were already scheduled.

Who made that schedule and what staff were they planning to use for those flights?

Flights are scheduled out months in advance and that planes/crews often fly multiple segments in a day. ...

you just proved my point. They scheduled those flights month ago, and they did not get the crews to operate those flights.

They have the crews. The key issue is that delays of any sort, whether within or outside their control, impact crew availability. Crews have significant restrictions on the hours they can work. Airlines, like most other companies, have enough staff to provide services if all goes well. Unlike most industries, they can't hire today and deploy tomorrow. It takes weeks of training to qualify flight attendants. There are situations that arise short notice that have significant impact to crew availability. A one hour delay at an airport can have significant ripple effects for many flights.

Should they have extra staff on standby? Absolutely. However, there are costs to this and where do they deploy those resources. There are roughly 5000 public airports in the country. The airlines are publicly traded and face pressures from Wall Street to control costs. It's a fine line for them.

I'm not defending any of them. Most are poorly run and not just in the US.

Definite poor planning, but the airlines started downsizing *NOT* knowing how long the pandemic was gonna last, or what, or if they were gonna get in the way of a bailout. As the pandemic, and downsizing, morphed, the furloughs, retirements, quittings, etc., affected the airlines in unplannable fashion. Once most of the shakeup/shakeout had been realized by last fall, then the airlines could start planning for what happened next.

As the pandemic loosened its reigns on air travel, the airlines were woefully understaffed, flights that previously had middle seats blocked suddenly had extra capacity, but no one to staff them. The airlines made some attractive retirement offers to high seniority employees, to cut as much of the higher salaried staff as possible. Some prescient employees took furloughs, rather than the retirement packages that were offered. When the pandemic weakened, and more airline employees were needed, there wasn't/isn't enough of a pool to draw from.

To some degree, the airlines shot themselves in the foot, but at the time they were doing so, there was no way of knowing when, or how fast air travel would ramp up again; or which airlines were gonna survive. While scalping big executive bonuses es no bueno, it's tough to fault their basic business model under the then existing circumstances of fighting for corporate survival.

Staffing a major airline is lot more complicated than staffing your local Mickey D's. The airlines quite effectively cut ties with large chunks of their workforce. Then, when shots started getting into arms, qualified employees were/are scarce. A lot of it boils down to the airlines' long practiced seniority system. A 30 or 40 year pandemic retired employee, isn't about to join another airline just to start at the bottom again, and the airlines haven't yet figured out how to gracefully get their former employees back in any sort of cohesive fashion without ruffling the feathers of the existing current employees.

There's enough blame to go around, but I'm not ready to hop on the bandwagon to start suing airlines in light pf everything that has transpired. Personally, I think the Orange Menace is way, way, way more to blame for the airlines' situation than the airlines themselves.
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Buzz
While scalping big executive bonuses es no bueno, it's tough to fault their basic business model under the then existing circumstances of fighting for corporate survival.
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Cutting executive bonuses isn't always an option. Many have this compensation as part of their hiring agreement/contract. Cutting bonuses of those that did nothing to breach the terms of employment would be a breach of contract and result in lawsuits that the companies would loose in court plus lawyers fees.

Same happened when AIG had financial issues and Congress and others balked that Execs were getting bonuses. AIG had no choice.

Executive bonus contracts negotiated by executives with executives is all self dealing.

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RgrF
Executive bonus contracts negotiated by executives with executives is all self dealing.

No disagreement. But they are a contract.

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Carnos Jax
The airlines can’t seem to get anything right. They’re suffering from a historically huge shortage of pilots and other personal right now. It’s even made me contemplate getting my pilot’s license and follow on ratings, and start a second career. I’m 52 currently….LOL.

My kids are getting theirs (rotary) courtesy of Uncle Sam.

Bill, how’s your kid doing at Pensacola(?). Do you have another kid trying to be a helicopter pilot, and if so which service?

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Carnos Jax
The airlines can’t seem to get anything right. They’re suffering from a historically huge shortage of pilots and other personal right now. It’s even made me contemplate getting my pilot’s license and follow on ratings, and start a second career. I’m 52 currently….LOL.

With mandatory retirement, it won’t be a very long second career…

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richorlin

Yup, probably take 5 years to get to the majors, so that leaves maybe a 5-8 year career at best. But I wouldn’t be doing it for the money, probably more as a ‘hobby’, just to fulfill a life long fantasy. Not sure how serious I am about it though. Almost amusing to think one would do something like that when you’re supposed to be retired.

Last April I traveled round trip from L.A. to Philly on American. I purchased the extra leg room upgrade for both legs of the trip. No issues on the outbound flight, but on the return flight when they scanned my boarding pass as I boarded, the computer didn't accept the scan and the gate attendant printed and handed me a paper boarding pass.

I didn't think anything of it until I got to the assigned seat shown on my original boarding pass - the one not accepted at the gate - only to find it occupied. I told the occupant he was in my seat. Of course he said that he wasn't, until I showed him my original boarding pass.

At that point I looked at the paper boarding pass given to me at the gate - and found that I had been reassigned to another seat.

One that did NOT have the additional leg room for which I had prepaid.

I tried to engage the assistance of a flight attendant to resolve the situation, but was told essentially to sit my ass down in my new seat. Zero empathy.

American issued a credit for the upgrade fee the day after I arrived home. I give them points for promptness in issuing the credit, but I never received a single word of explanation from anyone at the airline regarding why the upgrade I had purchased and paid for weeks before the flight had not been honored.

I consider writing a letter expressing my dissatisfaction and requesting an explanation, but in the end I decided to provide the same level of courtesy in letting them know why I intend to never fly American again as they had provided to let me know why my upgrade purchase had not been honored - that is to say, absolutely none at all.

And that, kids, is why American Airlines can go @#$%& themselves.

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It is what it is.

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It is what it is.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2021 01:48AM by N-OS X-tasy!.

Last April I traveled round trip from L.A. to Philly on American.

Leaving LA or anywhere else for Philly - there's no upside to that!

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RgrF
Last April I traveled round trip from L.A. to Philly on American.

Leaving LA or anywhere else for Philly - there's no upside to that!

I went to visit my nephew and his newborn daughter - there’s the upside.

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It is what it is.

.....the Upside.....of Anger.....???

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!

I work with salespeople. You take the money and figure it out later. Don’t turn money away when people want to pay, because it’s hard enough as it to get them to pay initially. Act and apologize later.

If anyone truly wanted to fix airlines they’d be regulated again, probably even more expensive and bloated, but without the inconveniences we hope.

One thing they ain’t is agile or competitive overall. And the ticket price is pretty much not a reflection of their costs or profits in either direction.

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deckeda
I work with salespeople. You take the money and figure it out later. Don’t turn money away when people want to pay, because it’s hard enough as it to get them to pay initially. Act and apologize later.

SO eff'in' true.

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It is what it is.

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Carnos Jax
Bill, how’s your kid doing at Pensacola(?). Do you have another kid trying to be a helicopter pilot, and if so which service?

Currently learning to fly rotary via the "steam-powered" (all analog) TH-57B.

Once my youngest (already have their PPL) graduates they'll head off to Fort Rucker to learn to fly helicopters for the Army.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/24/2021 07:49PM by Bill in NC.