Over the weekend, I was contacted by several people about the American Airlines “pilot strike”.  Yes, everyone was talking about the pilot “strike”.  No, I’m not kidding.

There is no pilot strike.  There is no APA union sanctionized work action going on right now.

But . . . there does appear to be an informal “work to rules” campaign going on right now if anecdotal reports are to be believed.   It appears to be focused on maintenance items and most particularly oriented towards equipment that nominally can be “MEL’d” (Minimum Equipment List) for continuing a flight.

It would appear that the mechanics are cooperating as well.  By that I mean the mechanics are dutifully investigating and writing up problems in a meticulous manner.  All of this is resulting in big delays within the American Airlines network and it appears to include American Eagle labor as well.

While it may not be organized by the union, I would expect AA to go to court and ask for a court order to the union to stop these actions.  US Airways suffered similar actions in Charlotte and Philadelphia about a year ago when US Airways (EAST) pilots decided to throw a temper tantrum at that airline.  US Airways went to court and got a court order issued to the union to stop that behavior.

In other news, another American Eagle flight was delayed for 4 hours when two flight attendants decided to have a public spat with each other and the captain of that flight decided the two couldn’t work together.  Whether or not the pilot was smiling as it all went on, we do not know.   It appears that one flight attendant called for their colleague to stop using their phone during taxi and everything went down hill from there.

This stuff is going to get worse, much worse, before it gets better.  Expect American Airlines to suffer increasing delays and cancelled flights over the next 2 to 3 months at the least.  Labor is unhappy and labor is making its unhappiness known in very troublesome ways.

This isn’t just because of bankruptcy or reduced benefits, it has much more to do with the open loathing labor has for AA executive staff with CEO Tom Horton being at the top of that list.  The hostility is raw and angry and unlikely to fade any time soon.

And I repeat again:  This is why I do not believe that American Airlines has its revenue problem solved for exiting bankruptcy.  All the corner strategies and alliances in the world cannot stop labor from sabotaging the company’s reputation.

Customers are getting angrier by the day and voicing that anger in very public ways.  I think we will see traffic erode on American Airlines over the next 3 to 4 months at minimum and possibly longer.  Once you lose those customers, it will be very, very hard to convince them to come back.  They are already abandoning AA as a travel option wherever possible according to anecdotal reports.

Filed under: Airline Service by ajax