American Airlines status

[Hoss]

At present, all the 737, 757, 767, and 777 work is done here. I'm fairly sure of that. And the MD80s are done here as well, but they're aging aircraft and will be retired soon. The 737 is a replacement for them. The MD80 replaced the 727 some time back. The 727 burned about 12gal/min in cruise while the MD80 burned only 8 or 9. The 737 is supposed to be more efficient, but I don't know it's fuel consumption. Fuel and wages are the biggest part of the budget, I'm told.

AA hasn't had 747 for more than 25 years. The 747s you see could be Air Force or cargo operations. The Air Force used to do touch and goes with an old 707 here, training bomber and tanker pilots. They were conspicuous by the large plume of black exhaust.

727s had that same telltale sign of black smoke.  I know UPS still runs a few, as I've seen them out at the airport recently.

A truly atrociously loud aircraft was the 737-200s.  Southwest had quite a few of them until they retrofitted them.  Those long nacelled engines gave them away.  They were almost as loud as A-10s.

And I wasn't sure if AA still have 747s.  I know at one point after Boeing bought MD that they essentially folded the MD80 into the 717 as the third gen of the DC-9, which I believe Douglas called the MD-90.  Not even sure if any of those are left.

[Conan71]

Does that include the big jets also?  I know a daily 757 flies out of here, but wasn't sure if they're equipped to handle the 47/67/77 series of Boeings.  I've seen the occasional 747 in here, but not often.  Last big jet I saw come to TUL was last week when that huge freakin' AN-124 landed while I was out to lunch and driving south on Memorial as it made it's run to 36R.

Is that the huge Russian freighter with the 8 wheel trucks under either wing? 

[Hoss]

Is that the huge Russian freighter with the 8 wheel trucks under either wing?  

Not under the wings..but big wheel cluster mid fuselage.  From a distance it looks like a C-5 Galaxy until you see the vertical stabilizer and realize it can't be, since the horizontal stab sits on the fuse and not at the top of the tail.

[heironymouspasparagus]

That thing was here last fall, when I flew back from the frozen north.  Huge.  There were a couple guys hanging around the wheels...late night...I am guessing guards.  Very cool to see.

[Conan71]

Not under the wings..but big wheel cluster mid fuselage.  From a distance it looks like a C-5 Galaxy until you see the vertical stabilizer and realize it can't be, since the horizontal stab sits on the fuse and not at the top of the tail.

That's it, five bogey's either side and two up front. 

[Oil Capital]

Laying off 400 doesn't mean they'll cut that many jobs here. That's a system wide number. But it's particularly annoying because AA told Tulsa mechanics that eliminating overtime would save 200 jobs. They eliminated OT for all of two weeks, then announced that 400 number.

Did the Tulsa World misstate the facts?  They reported that the 400 jobs to be cut were at the Tulsa maintenance base, not "system-wide."

[Hoss]

Did the Tulsa World misstate the facts?  They reported that the 400 jobs to be cut were at the Tulsa maintenance base, not "system-wide."

I think I'd trust Ed, who actually works out there, to anyone else that doesn't.

[Ed W]

Did the Tulsa World misstate the facts?  They reported that the 400 jobs to be cut were at the Tulsa maintenance base, not "system-wide."

AA may indeed cut 400 at the base, though they say the number may be influenced by outside factors and isn't necessarily set in stone. But the way our rules work makes this system wide. A qualified aircraft tech can bump someone with less seniority in his own or a lesser capacity position. That may mean taking a job in another city or taking a lower paying job here. So while it does mean fewer jobs in Tulsa, the effects spread through the system like ripples on a pond. The same thing happened when they shut down Alliance.

[Oil Capital]

AA may indeed cut 400 at the base, though they say the number may be influenced by outside factors and isn't necessarily set in stone. But the way our rules work makes this system wide. A qualified aircraft tech can bump someone with less seniority in his own or a lesser capacity position. That may mean taking a job in another city or taking a lower paying job here. So while it does mean fewer jobs in Tulsa, the effects spread through the system like ripples on a pond. The same thing happened when they shut down Alliance.

Gotcha.  To be clear, the 400 jobs (if there are indeed that many jobs eliminated) will all be eliminated from Tulsa.  Some of the people holding those particular jobs will be able to get other jobs in the American system by bumping less senior employees.

At the end of the day, Tulsa will have 400 fewer people working at American Airlines.

[Townsend]

Tulsa American Jobs Headed West

http://kwgs.com/post/tulsa-american-jobs-headed-west

American Airlines will be transferring accounting jobs from Tulsa to Arizona. About 130-jobs will relocate to the Phoenix area as the American and U-S Airways merge the accounting operations.

Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce Director Mike Neal reacted to the news:

MIKE NEAL: "While the Tulsa Regional Chamber never wants to see jobs relocated out of northeast Oklahoma, we are confident that many great Tulsa-region employers are seeking financial services and accounting professionals and that a number of career options are available to American Airlines employees who do not choose to relocate."

American Airlines says the relocation process should take about a year-and-a-half.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Tulsa American Jobs Headed West

http://kwgs.com/post/tulsa-american-jobs-headed-west

Ahh...yes... drawing more jobs to Oklahoma....

We are right on top of it here....

[SXSW]

The accounting jobs were expected to be consolidated in Tempe with the rest of the new AA's accounting division.  Most of the HQ jobs there are heading to Ft Worth but accounting is staying in Tempe with some of the higher level accountants also going to FTW.  Of the 130 in Tulsa, who office in the Triad building at 61st & Memorial, 100 will be offered jobs in Tempe and 30 will be offered jobs in FTW at AA HQ.  I imagine a decent number of those will stay in Tulsa and work elsewhere .  Plenty of accounting jobs at the local energy companies and banks.

[cannon_fodder]

If we gave them another $10  - 20 - 30 million can we keep the jobs?   Come on, AA is a good corporate citizen.  They aren't just looking for handouts to pad their bottom line.  They care!

Now let's put together a slush fund and give them more money!

[dbacksfan 2.0]

The moving of accounting jobs from Tulsa to Tempe kind of makes sense, America West before they were taken over by US Airways had just built a new facility in Tempe around 2003. The one thing I am curious about is how this affects the maintenance facilities in Tulsa and Ft Worth. Sky Harbor became a major hub for AWA/US Airway, but the maintenance facility there is quite small, basically it's a hanger that could house two 757's at one time. Could it be that Tulsa will have a continued future because of the capabilities of that facility?

A side note to this was the change they had to go through at Sky Harbor in Phoenix. When the merger went into effect, they moved all gate, counter, ticket, and baggage operations from Terminal 3 to Terminal 4. This has changed the plans at Sky Harbor to build a new terminal and eliminate Terminal 2 which housed United, Alaska, Horizon, and Frontier. It looks like United will move into Terminal 3, and leave Terminal 2 (which is about the size of one of the concourse at Tulsa) to the smaller carriers.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/2014/02/26/american-airlines-sky-harbor-move-goes-smoothly/5832653/

[dbacksfan 2.0]

Now the geek side of me wants to know, and I'm asking those that are pilots, when I fly on United and listen to the cockpit/ATC communications, will I no longer here flights referred to as "Cactus" which was AWA, then AWA/US Airways flights?