American Airlines is in a a bit of a pickle heading into December. A scheduling glitch has left the country's largest airline without enough pilots and staff ahead of the busy holiday season. The Allied Pilots Association (APA) said that they were notified by American Airlines that "a failure within the pilot schedule bidding system. As a result, thousands of flights currently do not have pilots assigned to fly them during the upcoming critical holiday period." American has come out an said that they are working very hard to solve this issue and avoid any cancellations. They are having reserve pilots pick up some of the shifts as well as paying pilots overtime or 150% of their hourly rate if they take certain open trips. The problem within all of this is that the APA is urging all of its pilots not take these trips because they might violate the union contract. "While the overtime is legal, the way they're doling out is not in compliance with our contract," said Capt. Dennis Tajer, spokesman for the APA in an interview with CNN. This could become a huge issue for American Airlines if they are not able to come to an agreement.
It is amazing that this all is because of a computer glitch that gave pilots the opportunity to withdraw from flights in December. From what the article is saying, I think American Airlines has been working to make up for the mistake by compensating the pilots with overtime that they may not have gotten before but the pilots union won't take it because of their contract. I really don't know how big of a deal that is but I think the pilots are the ones possibly benefiting from this glitch because of the higher pay that American Airlines is willing to give. The question then becomes will American Airlines push that extra cost onto consumers with higher ticket prices?
http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/29/news/companies/american-airlines-pilot-snafu/index.html?iid=EL
Unless American Airlines has an emergency fund for situations like this, I think they will end up pushing these prices onto the consumers. This could cause the airlines to not only lose consumers from prices, but from possible cancelled flights. I also agree that the pilots are possibly the ones that are benefiting from this glitch. I am surprised the pilots or even the union have not used this to their advantage to get more of what they want out of the airline company.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Erin. If it turns out they won't be able to pay these pilots overtime due to these violations, the only other alternative they have to make up for the loss caused by this glitch would be to increase prices. However, a computer glitch? Technology is fascinating...
ReplyDeleteI think we will see an increase of ticket prices on top of cancelled flights. Erin makes a good point about why the pilots union hasn't taken this malfunction and benefited more from it. I think we will see some new enforcement in the coming week.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree that American Airlines will push these prices onto their customers. They realize that they are already in a very sticky situation with the possibility of having to cancel flights during the busiest traveling time of the year. If they were to increase ticket prices while having to cancel flights, that would cause an uproar from many unhappy customers - possibly even lawsuits if people find a reasonable ground. The airline could not afford such a huge shakeup like that, and thus they will probably refrain from increasing prices.
ReplyDeleteI think the airlines use every chance they can get to push the extra costs onto passengers. And it's interesting that when the oil and gas prices dropped in the last few years --making jet fuel prices cheaper -- that they didn't take the opportunity to cut flight ticket prices.
ReplyDeleteit could be a technology error and although the pilots are offered more money to fly during the holiday and i also agree w/ Erin where it would end up for AA to increasing the ticket price.
ReplyDelete