American Airlines Reviews in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Area

Pros

Benefits, nice co workers, good variety of crew bases

Cons

Standby and reserve months, takes awhile to transfer bases

Pros

Great benefits, (including travel)
Great health benefits
Respected company
Opportunities to advance within the company
Recognized brands opens up opportunities for networking
Friendly people (most of them)
Friendly environment

Cons

Work-life balance non-existent
No-vacation time during the first year and working over time is expected
Extremely low pay (way below industry average)
Very limited resources (not even to be able to get your wok done)
Outdated technology
Poor middle management (good ideas get suck in the middle)
Bureaucracy and red tapes block make extremely challenging to get things done
"Out of the box" thinking non-existent
Formal dress code every day
Slow processess for everything

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

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

Terrific group of people. Flight benefits are great.

Cons

The airline industry is a very tough place to be now a days. Management at American Airlines seem to spend all of their time trying to get a head in the company rather than dealing with any of the actual problems of the company. As a result, the company continues to hemorrhage money.

The company had decided to not give out yearly raises any more. To get more money you must change jobs. Of course, the hiring manager is under no obligation to actually give you a raise.

Pros

Nice people and interesting work

Cons

Salaries are below market
There is a corporate wide salary freeze in place
Past salary increases were limited to 1.5% per year
The only way to obtain a salary increase is to get another job offer or obtain a higher job group position
Silos in departments create barriers to implementation of projects

Pros

Flight Benefits, People, Reputation, Competency of Management

Cons

Compensation Package is well below other local companies
Employees are not fairly treated based on years of service. Senior Management shys away from making important decisions addressing management compensation.

Advice to Senior Management

Management bows to union compensation but does not make changes to Management compensation.

Pros

Benefits, work-life balance, management, ability to make improvements

Cons

Pay, communication, work from home ability

Advice to Senior Management

increase pay

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.