American Airlines Reviews

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

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

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

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

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

* 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

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

Great Benefits, work life balance

Cons

limited growth, no effort to retain, low pay

Advice to Senior Management

Increase management salaries

Pros

Benefits package was far better than what I've experienced elsewhere
Co-workers/colleagues are great
Great flexibility with work schedule

Cons

Salary not quite comparable to other industries - understandable, but...
Profit sharing goals rarely met due to thin margins (even in good times)
Union-management relationships contentious

Advice to Senior Management

In general, management did great...some opportunities to improve relations with unions, for the good of the company, oft ignored, overlooked, or just avoided.

Pros

Pension plan retirement. Flight benefits

Cons

Expensive health care cost poor vision program. Product being sold much cheaper than its value. Employees treated as a cost structure instead of as a human being .

Advice to Senior Management

Senior members of management have lost over 500 million dollars this year due to some migating circumstances ie fuel cost, down economy and poor route decision making. . But are still receiving performance bonuses in excess 4 million dollars for the CEO. While rank and file employees have not received a incremental cost increase in over 3 years. I think to show good face senior management should hold at their base salaries until all can move forward together. Work together Win together.