scary stuff going on at American Eagle...

[bjratchf]

My first instructor from 4 years ago and I still keep in contact. He flew for American Airlines for a few years, but due to cutbacks in 2001-2002 he was put on furlough. He wrote me to tell me he was coming on board with American Eagle as part of some contract agreement which allows him to use his seniority to take jobs as captains on the Regional Jets at AEagle (a "flowback" agreement). He just emailed me a copy of a letter he got in his first weeks of systems training. It seems like a joke to me... but he sounded pretty serious about it. Just wanted to share with you guys, maybe sound off for some opinions:

_____________________________________

Dear Flowback,

I am your First Officer. And I'm your worst nightmare. You took my job. I was captain on this airplane, I had a lot of time on it, too, and a lot of other airplanes. I was a great captain with an excellent record, and I have experience in conditions you can scarcely imagine. Your knowledge, training, and experience are trivial compared to mine. But you decided to take my job and career from me. You do know what they call people who take other people's jobs, don't you? The word is scAAb, and you will be treated accordingly.
As such, I will do only what is necessary to keep myself from getting killed or violated or fired, but beyond that you are on your own. I am not paid to do IOE, so I
won't give you any advice on anything. If I yell MY AIRPLANE real loud, let go,
because I am trying to save my life and because you have screwed up. I have no respect for you and I have made it my purpose in life to get you fired. If you break the rules or do something stupid, it will be reported at once. If you break any FARs, I have the FAA on speed dial, and they will be informed immediately. I might feign mild friendliness, but it is just an act: I am sure that you have been instructed by management to report anyone who acts hostile to you, but I will also be trying to set you up: If you say anything that is
sexist, racist, homophobic, politically incorrect, or offensive in any way, shape or form to anyone on the planet, I will file a Rule 32 violation against you. These black marks on your record will follow you everywhere you go in the future. If you are fired from Eagle for these violations, you will not be recalled to AA and there is nothing that APA can do about it, and you won't be able to get a job towing banners. Just because you had the connections or interview skills or demographics to get a job at AA, do NOT pretend for one single moment that your skill as a pilot is superior to mine, or for that matter even remotely comparable. You are a shaved tail amateur compared to the flying I have done. You can expect me to constantly ridicule you abilities, however, the criticism will be unconstructive and designed only to make you feel rotten about yourself, which is something you desperately deserve. You made a serious mistake in opting to come to Eagle. You aren't wanted here. You will be hated and despised. You will have no friends among Eagle pilots, and we will all endeavor to make your life as miserable as possible.It is only a matter of time before you or one of your ilk turns one of our fine airplanes
into a lawn dart. On that tragic day, you can expect every single Eagle FO to become a "Deep Throat" not just for the benefit of the FAA and NTSB, but also for the press and public, creating a scandal that will destroy not just Eagle, but also AMR as a whole. Your coming here has created one of the worst Crew Resource Management problems in aviation history and it is all your fault. Because you have ruined our careers, we have nothing to lose. Eagle has the WORST contract in the business. Through experience, most of us have figured out how to cope with its weak points, but we won't share any of this information with you. Your life will be a living hell. Ours has been for a long time, and your coming here has made it worse, and we will take it out on you.You are not
the first to flowback. Many of those who came before managed to get out of it the only way they could: by activating their reserve commissions. They would rather be shot at in Iraq then continue to work at Eagle: Think about that! You were warned to stay away. You demonstrated incredibly poor judgement in coming anyway. You are my enemy. You will be the scapegoat for all the bad things that have happened at Eagle. It is unlikely you will last long here. We are determined to get you off Eagle property either by getting you canned or driving you to the point where you run screaming off the property. Welcome to hell.

signed,
Captain X.
_____________________________________

Geez people, I thought there was a LOVE to fly that drove us into this profession. This seems like a pseudo-madness. I wonder whats goin' on up there, and am glad I'm still a lowly pilot making my way.

-B


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[nwabri]

What that "First Officer" fails to realize, is that there are thousands of people who would take his job in a heart beat, and if this type of thing does happen, it won't be the Captain on the street, but the FO instead with many people willing to take that job..

That is all very petty, and seems to be stupid.

[bjratchf]

or another accident with fatalities due to improper CRM.

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[DouglasK]

>What that "First Officer" fails to realize, is that there are thousands of people who would take his job in a heart beat, and if this type of thing does happen, it won't be the Captain on the street, but the FO instead with many people willing to take that job..<


What you fail to realize is that "First Officer" wears four stripes and started at Eagle 20 years ago flying SD3-30's. A direct replacement for him is not so easy to find. Now, after 17000 flight hours dealing with the worst possible conditions and using equipment that the average AA pilot would refuse to accept -M.E.L. notwithstanding- his reward for all this faithful service and safe conduct of thousands of pax is to be demoted back to the right seat.

These people deserve some respect, and they are deadly serious about everything said in that "letter of intent".

You should understand Brian, that AMR's Rule 32 is a terrible threat to point at a fellow employee, it is written in such a manner that it can be used by management to abruptly terminate even a union employee without any due process beyond "there's the door", and without any employee recourse to arbitration over the matter. Rule 32 is much like "Catch 22" in substance and intent.


>That is all very petty, and seems to be stupid.<

I agree, the airline business is very petty and stupid, especially today.


>Geez people, I thought there was a LOVE to fly that drove us into this profession. This seems like a pseudo-madness. I wonder whats goin' on up there, and am glad I'm still a lowly pilot making my way.<

Welcome to the big leagues B, a very political atmosphere with constant undertones of ruthless union and upper management machinations.

There is a lot of money at stake here, not to mention considerable personal pride and prestige.

If you really love flying (and aren't concerned about pay), then Alaska is calling you, and the time to go is NOW - before it fills up with all the airline cast-offs and malcontents.

[saabpilot98]

"Many of those who came before managed to get out of it the only way they could: by activating their reserve commissions. They would rather be shot at in Iraq then continue to work at Eagle:"

I'm one of those guys who got activated while at Eagle, spent 5 months in the desert for the war and I'm going back soon. I will probably stay on active duty until this whole thing cools off. I've been at Eagle for 5 years, was a Captain for 8 months until I got displaced. I wasn't at Eagle when they voted for the contract (would have voted no), I've had words with guys who voted yes and letting the American guys have the Captain seats. They said the flowback would never happen. Yeah, sure! In my opinion, my bretheren would have sold their mothers for the chance to get to American because they didn't do the things it took to get hired off the street, ie education, employment record, flying time, whatever. I've flown with a couple of the flowback guys, the ones that have flying time at other regionals, I don't have a problem with. I know many American pilots. There are 11000 of them, most are good people, a few are arrogant A holes that think their stuff doesn't stink. If any of them flow back, their lives will be very difficult while at Eagle. We'll give them the benefit of the doubt, I hope they wake up and pay attention and see what life is really like for us DOWN at Eagle. Their lot in life won't be all that great, although they are coming to take our Captain seats, they will still be at the bottom of our seniority list and they will be Reserve Captains until they go back to American. Am I complaining, NO. Will I like it, NO. Don't take this as a slam Brian, until you have sat in the seat and experience the world we are living, you really don't know how it feels. The reason I'm at Eagle is I'm not military trained as a pilot. Sat in the engineer seat in a C-130, have 14 years as an enlisted man, been an officer for 9, got an ATP, a type rating and a Masters degree. Fly WW2 vintage airplanes on the weekend. I enjoy my airline job, even if it's with ONLY a regional, I don't like being looked down upon because I wasn't born with the good fortune to get military trained as a pilot. The stars didn't line up for me, no big deal, I made it to the airlines anyway. I know there's tens of thousands of pilots who would like to have my job, but there's not a one who realistically wouldn't say what I'm saying if they did.

Major Bob

[bjratchf]

___________________________________
Welcome to the big leagues B, a very political atmosphere with constant undertones of ruthless union and upper management machinations.

There is a lot of money at stake here, not to mention considerable personal pride and prestige."
___________________________________

Man, it just seems like a terrible thing to be doing to all the pilots there... it seems that it creates not only a very hostile CRM environement- the AA guys need to feed their families, and in the industry any job is a good job. The displaced guys have had basically a slap taken in their face, a "no thank you" for all the years of dedication hard work and experience. I may just be a college whippersnapper, but this situation REEKS of bad management. It seems that AMR doesn't care about the lives of its pilots, and would put their pilots against each other in order to save money (is this really the case?).

I've done some more research and it seems that this agreement was struck back in the day, allowing AEagle pilots to take seniority numbers at AA before actually flying for them. There was a cost to this, but as a previous poster mentioned, those pilots would sell their mothers to get on the seniority list, not even considering the needs of future fellow colleauges. What resulted, was this.

Not happy times at AMR, and I'm sorry the pilots are so unhappy with each other: it reminds me of the Stanford Prison Experiment, where keeping the inmates pitted against each other prevented any large opposition to the management- in this case as well.

Thank ##### I'll probably be flying corporate.






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