American Airlines Reviews

Pros

You meet a lot of people and some become life time friends.

Cons

You have to give your life to the airlines. Some days are very,very stressful. Your day depends on the weather everyday.

Advice to Senior Management

Get to the root of the problem. Try fixing the problem by talking to the employees.

Pros

American Airlines is an organization filled with opportunities. There are many great people who work here and I am honored to be one of them. The flight privileges are an added bonus for employees.

Cons

position promotion to upper management

Pros

Interesting work
Good work life balance
Great co-workers

Cons

Rigid viewpoints/old school
Clock-watchers
A lot of management not cut out for marketing/creative work - should stick with finance.
Senior management moves around too much - more interested in climbing to the top rather than doing right by employees.
MBA's were well regarded whereas employees who had been there for 20 years or more and knew the job and company were stuck in lower level positions.
Old equipment and systems - systems were always broken!
No money to do ANYTHING - even group outings were at the employees' expense.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire more talent from outside - quit promoting folks who are slackers and have no business being promoted!
Also, it might boost morale if they didn't have to pay for EVERYTHING. At a minimum provide free coffee!!!!!

Pros

great benefits, including flight benefits, long term employer, great advancement opportunitys, matching 401k plan, possibility to trasnsfer any where in the world

Cons

hard work, low pay, crazy schedules, crazy, angry customers, but you always need to remain nice, politeand profeesional at all times

Advice to Senior Management

poss start out pay higher than 9.00 bucks an hour, job is very hard, startout employess at full time, not just part time

Pros

Sometimes flights aren't completely full and you can use your flight priveleges to fly to an interesting place
It's nice to be able to see how full flights are.

Cons

Executives claim to believe in analysis to support business decisions, but changes in culture mean that you'll do just as much analysis as before only to have it ignored in favor of whatever they are feeling that day.
Executives fight tooth and nail to please executives one level above them in the hopes of being promoted during the next round of "musical chairs"- this creates a culture of doing what people thing the Chairman wants, not what is good for the company or the shareholders.
Anyone who says the health benefits are good hasn't worked at other Fortune 500 companies. Certain prescriptions for women weren't even covered until this year and then only because of a lawsuit. AA is old-school, and not in a good way.
Entering MBAs coming in this fall make higher salaries than MBAs who started two years ago, but there is no mechanism to bring salaries in line or to ask for an appropriate increase. The older MBAs have to just sit around and pray for "calibration" to bring their salaries in line with the new kids'.
Only way to get a raise is to move positions, but managers are so conscious of costs that they'll find any way to tell you that "they pushed HR really hard but we just couldn't give you a raise with this job move".
Vacation policy is awful; days that are accrued during one year aren't available until Jan. 1 of the next year.
Impossible to use the much-ballyhooed flight priveleges since flights are always full
Flight Crew can take advantage of flight priveleges because of their flexible schedules, but if you're at HDQ you'll be fighting everyone else on a 9-5 schedule to get out on a Friday and back on a Sunday night.

Advice to Senior Management

It's time for management below the executive committee level to be courageous and advocate for the right business decisions, even if they're afraid that it's something they think "Gerard" won't like. The "yessir" culture at the top can't be broken unless middle- to upper-management decides they're willing to risk making "Gerard" upset in order to do right by the shareholders and passengers.

Pros

Unlimited flight benefits
Ok to switch jobs every 12-18 months
MBAs are well regarded within the company

Cons

The company is not growing fast enough to have enough people promoted through the ranks
The starting pay is competitive but does not keep up with other companies

Advice to Senior Management

Take a look around at your competitors and other businesses - see what we are missing.
Talk to your customers - a lot of them hate flying AA!

Pros

Other employees are great to work with.

Cons

Senior management refuses to commit to their employees. They refuse to treat employees with respect or fairness. Always feel lied to.

Advice to Senior Management

Treat your employees with the same amount of respect that you would want for yourself. We will give you the world if you just stopped lying and treated us fairly.

Pros

Ability to move and work within different functions in the company is second to none. From finance to marketing to technology, you can gain invaluable experience that can help you in any other company.

Cons

After a certain level, it is hard to get promotions.

Advice to Senior Management

Create more mid-level management positions.

Pros

They have an excellent Credit Union

Cons

You will be fired if you take excessive days off

Pros

Flight benefits and my co-workers.

Cons

Corporate structure, limited growth opportunities into senior management positions.