American Airlines Reviews

Pros

Can get good experience, to further your Career. Must maintain a positive and professional work ethic because work place not a professional as may seem.

Cons

Level 4 and lower management, does not encourage positive work enviorment by reflecting on their behavior. But positive work environment is encourage by management verbally. Not by their action. Compliance of company guidelines not enforced fairly for all. Please keep in mind from the outside things seem professional. But from the inner circle you will come to a realization of a whole new reality.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to do better with employee relations. Management seems to shy away from making positive changes, without having to go through loops. Can't manage with an Iron Fist, Can't bring down the Hammer, as a fix.
Senior management needs to reassign or replace managers with numerous Human Relations issues. After all you wouldn't tolerate if an employee behaves improperly to the companies customers. Then why are certain managements improper behavior seems to be tolerated when directed towards employees. But must also note this type of issue may not be wide spread through out company.

Pros

staff memebrs are very engaged

Cons

Information sharing is a challanegm, but an oppurtunity for success as well.

Advice to Senior Management

There is a lot of oppunrtunity for improve, but it will be challenging.

Pros

Working for an international airline can be addictive. It draws the type of person who values the adventure of travel combined with the desire to provide service to travelers. One can experience a great sense of pride when visiting an airport and experiencing first hand what it takes to successfully and safely fly a plane full of passengers from point A to point B. An airline is a complex entity and it is truly a wonderful thing to be part of when it all comes together. We just experienced our first profitable quarter in, well, a long time. AA's IT management has performed adequately and, at times, more than adequately. On the airline side, senior management has done a superb job of managing to remain one of only two major airlines in the US who didn't walk away from their financial obligations. For that alone, AA can be rightfully proud.

Cons

9/11. As mentioned, working for an international airline can be addictive. However, given what has occurred to the travel industry since 2001, being addicted to your job can be a bad thing. In fairness, the IT component of American has been strapped by the substantial losses the travel industry in general has experienced in the last few years. Since then, it has been, at times, in survival mode. The financial environment has constrained the ability of a leading airline to be even better.

Advice to Senior Management

Be creative about partnering. There are some models out there which could inspire a new approach. While Virgin Atlantic is less than wonderfully successful, they might be on to something in terms of partnering and creativity. The single biggest challenge to future success lies in changing the historically troubled relationship between American Airlines and it's unions.

Pros

Flight benefits and medical insurance

Cons

No matter how long you work for AA or how much experience you have, they continually hire the brand new MBA's right out of college for 50% more than you make and they become your boss. They act like Diva's and have absolutely NO real airline experience.

Advice to Senior Management

Promote from within and use the experience of your senior employees. Distribute the profits more equitably instead of to the Executives and you'll find your good employees may actually enjoy working for AA again. We used to! But no more.

Pros

Flight benefits..when you can get them.

Cons

No flexibility for personal life for lower management
Cronyism
No raises for 4 years for lower management

Advice to Senior Management

First of all, pay the managers what they are owed. No one wants to work 12-14 hours a day mandatory EVERY DAY then get paid for only 8. In LAX favoritsm and brown nosing is key in the lower managers. Some get to work from home..and others are required to work 12-18 hours a day to cover them..without extra compensation or comptime off. SERIOUSLY PEOPLE?!! There is NO room for a persona life, we may or may not be even granted a vacation. Have a personal emergency? you are FIRED. Yes, FIRED in LAX it has happened 2x in the past year. Its like the Hotel California..you can check in but never leave. No one is ever " released" to go to another job. You have to quit or get fired. The work practices should be illegal but Human Resources turns their head the other way. " When you are a manager at AA you give up the right to a personal life" is what the station's VP has told their managers. STAY AWAY from this company they only care about the $$$ and the bottom line. I'm only here because I haven't found another job yet.

Pros

great people to work with. the people that work for AA are friendly and fun. the company culture is not so competitive compared to other corporations.

Cons

advancement is difficult and pay is marginal. i remember that there are so much politics that they always hire their friends . very hard to advance.

Advice to Senior Management

Better incentive. More training and interaction within co-workers is important. Labor groups within the company have low morale it is unfortunate.

Pros

Of course the flight benefits, exciting industry, strong revenue management, open door policy, nice longevity benefits, pretty good about personal time,

Cons

As with most big business, things are slow as molasses to make it to production. However, things are getting better and should continue to go that way.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work. Keep up the good work. Keep up the good work. Keep up the good work.

Pros

The flight benefits are really wonderful. As an employee you can fly as many times as you want, just paying a small amount to cover the taxes for the trip.

Cons

Horrible pay. Terrible benefits. The company really doesn't consider you a human being, you are strictly a number to them and they don't make any exceptions. It's like working for a bunch of robots.

Advice to Senior Management

Be a little more understanding of your employee's needs. Treat them with respect. Better training techniques are desperately needed. Better pay.

Pros

Great Benefits, work life balance

Cons

limited growth, no effort to retain, low pay

Advice to Senior Management

Increase management salaries

Pros

* Benefit package is great overall
* Travel benefits are much harder to access because planes are so booked

Cons

* Long hours, in one spot, with relatively few breaks for reservations agents

Advice to Senior Management

* Lack of opportunities for physical movement for reservations agents is totally unhealthy
* You run the reservations environment like a third world sweat shop