AA Captain Leaves for Virgin America

Hey folks. I read the following at flyertalk. Apparently, the letter is real. I have very mixed feelings about it.

But I am very curious to hear your opinions here, especially from those of you who are pilots in training or those who have been in the industry for a while.

The one thing on my mind is this....while I understand the human need to vent, I can't help but question the pilot's move. Does he really feel that Virgin America is a panacea to his problem?


Read on:

The question is sometimes asked here, "If you don't like it, why don't you leave?". Here's a letter to Arpey from a senior AA Captain who did just that.

-----------------------------------------------------

Dear Mr. Arpey:

On July 1st I retired from American Airlines - 9 years early. Since the
PUP/PSP payouts began 15 months ago, I have felt demoralized, angry and
betrayed. I am fully aware that neither you nor the other senior
managers understand this widespread reality. Perhaps by now the
destructive force of this "plan" has started to sink in to you. I truly
hope so, or American is truly doomed. The PUP has marked the turning
point at American. This was a grotesque error on management's part; one
that management will never admit; one that the workers will never
forget. As exhibited by AA's plunging numbers in reliability and
customer satisfaction, the current management game plan cannot recover
this jet. I leave saddened by what could have been at American.

I am by nature a very positive person. The failure of your leadership
has made it clear to me that I cannot work for such a "team" any longer;
for a company that devalues and denigrates its employees while enriching
a few executives. I was offered a job with Virgin America, and after
much consideration, I accepted their offer. I will be working for a
fraction of the pay, but I will be working in an environment of
cooperative spirit and teamwork. I have thus far seen strong and genuine
LEADERSHIP at Virgin, and I could not resist the offer to work for a
company that lists its priorities as:

1. Employees First
2. Customers second
3. Stockholders third

Happy Employees = Happy Customers = Happy Stockholders. What a novel
concept!

Conversely, I see an American Airlines that is nearly totally devoid of
any substantive Leadership, with perhaps two notable exceptions at the
Base Chief Pilot Level.

I remember the wonderful employees of this company that stood up to the
plate, swallowed the tough pill, and put their hearts into turning this
company around. And I am deeply saddened to see the wholesale loss of
heart in these same employees as a direct action of Management's
Me-First compensation plan.

Mr. Arpey, I have cast my No Confidence Vote with my feet. It is my
intent to finish my flying career surrounded by highly motivated
individuals, ready to sacrifice for the team because they know the Team
cares equally for them. I thought this is what we were going to have at
American Airlines when you took the reins, and I am sadly disappointed
to realize that it is not so.

I lack any confidence in your ability to turn this ship around, let
alone restart its stalled engines. You have a system currently in place
which shields you from both the reality and truth of the daily
operation. For the record: it is hanging by a thread. It is a house of
beauty from afar, whose foundation has been eaten by termites. You have
a "looks good on paper" system that defies reality (no spare tires for a
737 in DFW? A flight cancelled for no spare wing tip light bulbs? Actual
events in the past six months).

You rely on statistics that are generated by a system designed for CYA,
not system improvement. Here's a reality check: Our dismal customer
satisfaction and on-time performance statistics are not due to weather.
It's due to the storm of employee morale and foolish strategic decisions
which have led to poor reliability. Your employees used to give above
and beyond to make the system work, regardless of the weather. And now
they just don't care anymore.

AA's delay system has always been an exercise in finger-pointing and
blame assignment. Complete reliance upon statistics themselves is a
mistake, because, first, they give you the false impression that the
workers are even participating in the system; and secondly do not
provide you with even a partial picture or reason why. My retirement is
one example: One more number added to a list of retirements. Do you
notice it is 9 years early? That it is a fairly senior guy with a
reputation for going the extra mile? Do you wonder why? Or do you just
tell Planning, we need another new body? My point exactly.


In discussing my plans to leave American with several people in
Management, I came away shaking my head: The leaders of this company
are delusional. We might suck, but United sucks even more. AA won't
be losing business customers to Virgin. We have contracts with them.
They HAVE to fly AA. Now there's a business plan with promise.

Or my favorite: You're pissed off. Why? Because you're the highest paid
in the industry and will retire a multi-millionaire. That statement
pretty much said it all. And if you are relying on inputs from these
people, sir, you are deluded as well.

IF any of the other senior leadership were to leave your offices and
get out on the factory floor; and IF any of you would be open to
listening, you might start to realize how fragile the system is. The
workforce is enraged, and you cannot understand why. So you stop right
there. And yet the workforce is still enraged. There is a steaming
locomotive headed your way for a catastrophic collision, and you just
shrug your shoulders.

Sir, you have 80,000 employees starving for leadership. You have an even
smaller group of employees (namely the agents, rampers, and flight
crews) that are the only thing holding this operation together. We have
finished in the basement all year long on all the ratings you value for
our laughable AIP bonus, and yet you pin it on "weather events" instead
of recognizing that your workforce no longer cares.

You can discount me as one of the malcontents if you wish. Or if you are
wise you would step back and be concerned that you have lost someone
like me who would've carried the flag up Mt Suribachi just a few months
ago, but is walking away now. It's not just me. I cannot tell you how
many phone calls and handshakes I've received from employees telling me
they wish they could do the same. I won't tell you how many other pilots
I know who are actively seeking other opportunities to escape the
toxicity of this company. The bottom line is that you have taken the
tremendous wave of positive energy this workforce once had to create a
New American Airlines, and you have sucked all the energy out of it.

In its place you have created a self-destructive force of discontent and
apathy that WILL lead to a strike on this property and perhaps the
ultimate demise of this company. You have failed. Miserably.

I said before that I am a positive person, and so I still hold out a ray
of hope; and that is why, perhaps foolishly, I write this final letter:
on the miniscule chance that you might actually listen.

Can this all be saved? It is such a long shot. The Turnaround Plan
would have to start with an acknowledgement of your failures, and an
apology for the empty slogans and promises. You might want to start with
an end to the PUP, and a similar distribution / reparation to your
employees for good measure.

An AApology from the Senior Leadership for this grievous error; an olive
branch to the workers to bring them back into the process; and nothing
short of returning the pay and working rules that were sacrificed to
save the company from bankruptcy in the first place. Not through
contract negotiations, sir. But as reparation for the tremendous damage
the PUP has done. Quite frankly, there is nothing else that will stop
the freight train.

I know. You think you gave us so much with stock options and the AIP. I
think I recall you describing it as a "$1 billion payout to the
employees". We can go back and forth on this one forever, but suffice it
to say that most of us gave up the equivalent of a full year's salary by
now to receive at the VERY best, 25% of a year's salary in these
programs. Your "team" on the other hand gave up what? To receive many
times your annual salary in payouts, not once, but twice and thrice to
come. Mr. Arpey, your message is not playing to the peasants.

By now you should realize you have lost all credibility with your
workforce. By now you should realize that you have destroyed the
fledgling cooperative spirit at AA. And if you don't, God help American
Airlines. If you ever want to talk about what needs to be done to turn
this ship around, I am always available! As are the other 80,000
employees of your company. Start listening.


I leave with my best wishes and hopes for this company. There are so
many people here who deserve its success. At Virgin America it is quite
clear that they understand that a motivated workforce is the key to
success. And you cannot motivate by beating and robbing your employees.
I sincerely hope that one day American Airlines will get it and start
to reap the benefits of an empowered, motivated workforce. It would be a
grand victory for everyone in the company, top to bottom. It starts with
LEADERSHIP. Inspired leadership, not Management. My first employer, The
Air Force, taught that leadership put people first. Interestingly, they
taught that the troops should always eat first. Conversely, at AMR,
management is always the first to the table and the last to leave. I
think this explains better than anything the loss of morale at American,
and the subsequent plummeting numbers you see for customer satisfaction.

You have seen hints of this great workforce potential in the years
leading up to the first PUP. Your Management team may have accomplished
great financial feats, but you must certainly also know that it was your
inspired and dedicated employees that pulled off the real miracle.

Sincerely,

### ######
Captain, SFO
RETIRED

I think he's right on many of his points. AA isn't what they use to be but I also think alot of what he's complaining about is just typical employee frustration and BS. AA is still a far better airline then many of the other U.S flag carriers and it will take VX decades to offer the service AA offers.

He still needs to transition to the A319 though, but good for him.

Good points, but as for Virgin America....it's been a week of operations...and who knows when this was written. Tough to compare I think.

That captain could be writing to any major CEO, and just insert the airline name. Labor is very upset today--more and more airlines are giving significant bonuses to their officers, and have not shared their good fortunes or financial recoveries with their rank and file employees.

The captain's order of priorities--employees, customers and then stockholders is spot on. It is a page out of the Herb Kelleher playbook, and it is a stated tenet of our organization, FFOCUS, of which I am co chair.

Herb stated that you can't have happy customers without happy employees--and that with happy customers, you will by extension have happy stockholders. While this particular captain worked for AA, I think his frustration is felt across all the majors right now.

I won't digress into how another airline is missing this message, but suffice to say if Virgin America lives up to the hype, they are going to take a lot of premium business away from AA and UA and DL on transcons.

Just my 2 cents.

As usual Art is right on the money. As I read this I said to myself this could just as easily be a US Capt writing to Doug Parker or other US major carriers and even not so major. Upper management does not get it, and I agree with the AA captain, they are shielded and here and see what they are supposed to see. I have a lot of respect for the stranger that wrote the letter and I wish him nothing but the best at his new employer.

Regards

LGA777

I can agree with Art, this sounds how a lot of us felt at UAL when they started their "cost savings" in 2002 by keeping and upgrading executives so they would stay and help UA through the tought times (with generous raises I might add). All the while, they saved money by cutting back on the areas of the company that the customer sees...the EVERYDAY workforce. Quite a few UAL employees bolted to jetBlue just to stay in the industry, my brother being one of them. For the first 2-3 years there everything was like a dream come true. Unfortunately the last year or so there has been very trying on those folks, they have grown too fast and that can be seen in the NUMEROUS service failures the last 12-18 months.
My brother has told me of nights (in good weather mind you) that aircraft are waiting for their gate to open, meanwhile other gates are open, but the ops folks cannot handle swapping gates so pax sit on the taxiway for an additional 20-30 mins while the previous flight gets buckled up.
I think the best story was when the ops & maintenance folks were not on the same page, so they were looking for an aircraft (say N527JB, I do not know the exact tail #) to be on Gate 10 for an 0800 departure. MX swore up and down the aircraft was at the gate already, Ops said it was not there and was at the MX hangar. After about 45 of bickering, the ramp supervisor finally went out and found the aircraft...parked at Gate 23. By the time they got it to the gate, you guessed it, delayed, and with that being the first departure of the day for that aircraft, all the rest of the days trips assigned to it were delayed. But I digress....
If this letter is legit, and it certainly sounds it, I wish that man well, and would like to shake his hand for making a stand. He obviously can stand to take the pay cut, so to go out on a limb and go with a smaller company takes guts. Good luck to him, and good luck to AA. Arpey will never see that letter, and things will only change with time. Will they survive, most likely yes, as this is only 1 disgruntled pilot moving on. However, if they lose 250-300 pilots quickly, they will be just like NWA was only a few weeks ago, and it will take a long time to recover from that. They will just hire back pilots that have been furloughed, it will just take some time.