Dear Sisters and Brothers:

Our contract votes are in, and now we must re-start the contract campaign. We will continue to push forward to secure an equitable agreement, to be recognized for our sacrifices, and most importantly to stop the continuing erosion of the future of all airline professionals.

Our next steps must be initiated immediately. I have asked the ATD to call for an urgent meeting of the entire team to develop a renewed strategic plan.

While the team will help design our campaign, there are four changes I am instituting now until we can fully review the current negotiating structure at AA.

1. There will be two equal co-chairs of the team, one from ATD staff and another elected by the team. This hopefully avoids much of the miscommunications we are currently experiencing.

2. The co-chairs will BOTH attend their meetings with the company and the NMB with no exceptions.

3. We will also make sure that every member of the negotiating team is fully engaged in the process and demonstrates their ability to get real time information to our members at the drop of a hat. As an example: having dedicated team captains in the field to disseminate the information directly from the negotiating committee.

4. I have asked the ATD to provide additional electronic communications sent out as the “Contract Connection” after every negotiating session. Regardless of how you voted, the time is now to be more united than ever. The company may be counting on us to fight one another and destroy ourselves from within; I can assure you that will not happen unless you and I allow it to happen.

Again, now that the membership has spoken, we must put the past behind us and come together and speak with ONE VOICE with the ultimate goal to get the best contract we can for our members.

The ride is not going to be easy, but we are in this together for as long as it takes. It is a proven fact that “United We Stand, Divided We Fall.”

In solidarity and fraternally,

James C. Little

International President 

ORD Recall Details

On August 31^st we met with Senior Management. The agenda was primarily about the fall bid cycle and headcount. Here is a breakdown of what was discussed.

Departures:

While there will be no increase in daily jet departures, there will not be a decrease either. Daily jet departures should stay at about 160.

Recall:

8 FT Crew Chiefs (to be posted for bid)

11 FT Fleet Service (to be recalled)

24 PT Fleet Service (to be recalled)

A total of at least 35 members will be recalled, maybe more if the Crew Chief bids are awarded to ORD employees. This is a start of going back in the right direction for all of us. These members should all be recalled for the Oct. 16 bid.

Gate Manning:

The gate staffing will remain the same for now. The 0800 starter may be moved up to 0730 and the part time employee on the back end will have their shift extended to 5 hours adding extra coverage where it’s needed. It was recognized that our dependability is not where it should be. To improve that number to where our competitors are there will additional gate crews added to both the a.m. and p.m. shift.  The target number is 5 total per shift. That number includes the 2 flex crews on mornings and afternoons, making the net increase 3 per shift. The theory for theses gates is that they will act as spares and not have full lines but act as backups in case of mechanicals and other unforeseen instances that keep an aircraft on a gate longer than scheduled. The spare gates have not been identified as the company wants to research the best ways to lay them out. Their goal is to have the spare gates hold a variety of aircraft types to cut down on all the gate changes.

Facilities:

To make this new gate plan work, there will be some obstacles to overcome. On p.m.’s there aren’t enough gates to accommodate all the spare gates. Theses spares will be worked in as gates become available. One solution that is coming is K6. They will re-hang a jet bridge somewhere between the old K6a and K6b gates. That bridge is coming from SAT and won’t be operational until mid December. It was recognized by both sides that the L gates offer an opportunity for us. There are complicating legal issues ongoing and while we would love to see those gates branded as AA that is not going to happen short term. Those facilities would be ideal for us to have overflow gates and secure (hopefully) work for our OneWorld partners, especially BA and JAL.

Lunches:

This issue is much bigger on afternoons than mornings. The plan is to have pure lines on gates with lunches built in and that these spare gates will provide the relief to keep gate lines pure with a dedicated lunch window.

Destination changes:

The most surprising news is that FRA will be changed to seasonal service and will not operate in the winter. The hope is that the volume on that flight will be picked up on AA’s LHR service. The decision to pull that flight was based on the need for the aircraft. The AA fleet is not growing and to serve new markets (JFK- Tokyo Haneda) AA would have to draw the aircraft from an existing route.

V.P. Tedeschi has stated to us numerous times that he cannot change what happened here before his arrival he can only have an impact on what he’s done since May and looking forward. Since his arrival he has added headcount in facilities and on the ramp before this increase in headcount. All this was done without an increase in flight activity. Many of the shortcomings in the operation that we have identified previously are now being addressed. Everything can’t be fixed at once and will take time but it appears that we have gotten on the right track with the recent additions in headcount and philosophical changes towards the operation.