American Airlines glitch leaves flights without pilots for Christmas.

[Goobaman]

This is one of those unfortunate circumstances where a company IS NOT being greedy and subversively trying to force pilots to work through vacations. This is an honest glitch that allowed a crummy situation to manifest.

The pilots should not be forced to give their time up. Be real, because if this were reversed i have -zero- doubt a company would choose their profits over the well being of their employees. This is Murica and we look out for ourselves first.

That said, if i were a pilot i'd easily sac my vacation for 2x pay. I might even do it for 1.5x but then i'd need goodies like in-flight ribeyes or something.

AA will no doubt come up with a solution but it will be exclusively based on what costs them the least money balanced with deflecting customer hate. I wonder if they can force the pilots to work, but i rather doubt it.

IF random people are affected it will be because AA decided that was the cheapest option.

[Crissi]

Why is it greedy to not want to give up their vacations?

Its not necessarily. Its is, however, greedy to expect more than adequate compensation for it (when not a product of AA being cheap asses)

and maybe its my selflessness talking, but I personally would rather screw myself if it was between myself and 200 other people that relied on me for transportation (unless the result would be unsafe).

[Goobaman]

Why is it greedy to not want to give up their vacations?

It isn't, at all.

"Greedy" to not give up your family time. LOL.

[Crissi]

This is one of those unfortunate circumstances where a company IS NOT being greedy and subversively trying to force pilots to work through vacations. This is an honest glitch that allowed a crummy situation to manifest.

The pilots should not be forced to give their time up. Be real, because if this were reversed i have -zero- doubt a company would choose their profits over the well being of their employees. This is Murica and we look out for ourselves first.

That said, if i were a pilot i'd easily sac my vacation for 2x pay. I might even do it for 1.5x but then i'd need goodies like in-flight ribeyes or something.

AA will no doubt come up with a solution but it will be exclusively based on what costs them the least money balanced with deflecting customer hate. I wonder if they can force the pilots to work, but i rather doubt it.

IF random people are affected it will be because AA decided that was the cheapest option.

The amount of customer hate would be extreme if they just go cheap on the pilots and the pilots walk, because its holiday time. So I personally think AA will fold unless the demand is like 4x pay rate or something equally silly.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Bottom Line is AA is going to be taking a bath on this. The choice is simply how to do so.

a) They can lose money by canceling flights...leading to reimbursing customers and probably comping their next flight.

or

b) They can lose money by giving the pilots whatever is deemed fair compensation for the vacation time they will be giving up to make those flights happen.

Option a is a loser. Even with comping their next flights...they still risk losing future business from those passengers.
Option b can be a winner for them. Sure, they lose money short term...but both their pilots and their passengers will be happy.

[Allybeboba]

So are they getting double time and a half or just time and half?
They would be already be getting their 100% pay because of holiday pay whether they worked or not. AA should be offering them an additional 2.5 on top of that or 3.5. I am sure their normal union contract already calls for 1.5 plus their holiday pay which would equal 2.5.
AA needs to give an incentive if they expect their pilots to not take a vacation that was already approved.

[Goobaman]

Bottom Line is AA is going to be taking a bath on this. The choice is simply how to do so.

a) They can lose money by canceling flights...leading to reimbursing customers and probably comping their next flight.

or

b) They can lose money by giving the pilots whatever is deemed fair compensation for the vacation time they will be giving up to make those flights happen.

Option a is a loser. Even with comping their next flights...they still risk losing future business from those passengers.
Option b can be a winner for them. Sure, they lose money short term...but both their pilots and their passengers will be happy.

Could not agree more.

Not Corporate-level, but i worked the Genius Bar at Apple. More or less any decision made to replace an iPhone when objectively it -shouldn't- be replaced is a factor of which decision costs us less once the customer got irate.

Lose a possible customer, which could mean X number of Apple products and free advertising all over a 150 repair?
Eat the cost to replace (which is still basically nothing to Apple) but "make a fan a for life", which all but ensures more income from them and anyone else inspired by this story of Apple altruism?

Companies are smart yo, a lot of the time anyway lol.

[Allybeboba]

Bottom Line is AA is going to be taking a bath on this. The choice is simply how to do so.

a) They can lose money by canceling flights...leading to reimbursing customers and probably comping their next flight.

or

b) They can lose money by giving the pilots whatever is deemed fair compensation for the vacation time they will be giving up to make those flights happen.

Option a is a loser. Even with comping their next flights...they still risk losing future business from those passengers.
Option b can be a winner for them. Sure, they lose money short term...but both their pilots and their passengers will be happy.

Yeah...
They are going to have to pay the pilots through the nose if they want to keep their customers happy.

[Captain N]

The amount of customer hate would be extreme if they just go cheap on the pilots and the pilots walk, because its holiday time. So I personally think AA will fold unless the demand is like 4x pay rate or something equally silly.

I was asking if we ever had something similar to this before I started with the railroad and apparently we did back in 2002 with a communication error between the home office and the terminal. Basically the yard had 90% of its jobs annulled for both Christmas and Christmas Eve due to the initial report from the home office declaring we would shut down for the holiday -- A second updated report that volume wouldn't allow a shut down never made it to the terminal until the 23rd. In a panic both the terminal and office bumped holiday pay up to 3.5 x the normal rate for anyone who would agree to come in and work and were placed in seniority order on a specialty call board.

We've since kept this board for all holidays where people holding yard jobs can place onto an on-call board on the holidays for the higher rate of pay should the jobs be annulled for the holiday. We've never had an issue since I'm told.

[zEmini]

Not if AA does the right thing and works with the union to find a solution that will get those pilots to agree with giving up their vacations.

Think the pilots will do it for free? I bet most of them have already booked their trips so AA would have to reimburse AND give added incentive.

In the end that means higher costs, which will mostly be forwarded onto the consumer once again.

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

Think the pilots will do it for free? I bet most of them have already booked their trips so AA would have to reimburse AND give added incentive.

In the end that means higher costs, which will mostly be forwarded onto the consumer once again.

I never implied the pilots should do it for free.

If AA raises their prices it will cost them more in the long run than the small hit they will take doing right by their pilots and customers.

[Doctor Amadeus]

@Crissi

For the Love of god there are good men and women that can step up and help out, it's no big deal, as long as nobody has a drinking problem. Like last time.

[Bryntrollian]

Which they probably will, but again I have a huge problem with excessive greed because of glitches and not anything malicious.

They worked years to earn this vacation time and you think its greedy that they aren't willing to give it up for basically nothing at all?