American Airlines Reviews in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Area

Pros

The travel and travel benefits can't be beat. The culture lends itself to great work life balance too. The bnefits are not bad and the people I worked with are great.

Cons

The MBA program is killing the company. To many highly educated do nothings who get all the opportunities. The pay is also low compared to averages within my peer circles. Also, considering the great travel benefits, there is very limited time (vacation) to use them. I really liked working at American but didn't feel I could stay around if I wanted a longer career with opportunities. Also, the issues with unions was always a constant negative.

Advice to Senior Management

Beg the goverment to re-regulate the industry.

Pros

Great Company with a proud heritage. Working at American Airlines has been great.

Cons

The airline industry does not offer security. Airline Employess are under constant threat of downsizing and losing their jobs. Post 911 the airline industry has been a real depressing place to be. Constant threat of job loss, and pay reductions keep people in the industry always guessing and worried.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't take bonuses when the rank and file are taking pay cuts.

Pros

Benefits and the opportunity for lateral movement for greater experience.

Cons

Management is slow to adopt change such as flexibility in the workplace, working from home, etc. Decision making has reverted to the old 80's style of control; employees including mid-level management are no longer empowered to actually make decisions that fall outside of the lines so while front-end employees are frustrated by the lack of authority this has spread upwards in the company.

Advice to Senior Management

To reduce the number of rules and restrictions. When you have people in management positions and don't allow them to make decisions then the organization is doomed to failure.

Pros

American Airlines has a strong legacy. I like the idea that I work for a great airlines.

Cons

Old ideas and there is still alot of racism. African-Americans still have a hard time moving up in the company and we have very few people who want to help

Advice to Senior Management

Take a hard look at hiring and promotion processes. Diveristy is so important...we need diversity at every level of the company not just the airport.

Pros

The time off, the people, some of the passengers (a minority these days, I'm afraid), the travel priveleges are nice if you can get a seat

Cons

We are all just worker drones to the management of amr

Advice to Senior Management

They have no concept of shared sacrifice or shared gain. They need to get out of their "ivory tower" and come work for awhile in the trenches to get a true understanding of the actual operation of the airline. They truly have NO CLUE, as is evidenced by most of their communications and policy decisions.

Pros

I can only think of 1, free space available flights

Cons

Lower level managers are more concerned about covering up problems than soliciting input from someone with enough authority to bring about change.

Advice to Senior Management

It's a sad day when an employee has to decide between helping a father locate the address and telephone number of a funeral home when he's just learned his son was killed in an auto accident and needs a reservation immediately... or telling the father to call back when he has either a hospital, funeral home, cemetery, or Doctor's contact information to include in his record for verification purposes. The second option would clearly be the preference of any AA reservation supervisor as it would insure the agent didn't exceed the 230 second AHT (average handling time) requirement to maintain a satisfactory performance record. I would say to every Senior Manager within the AA Organization, if you have one ounce of compassion or integrity, YOU pick up the phone and YOU call central reservations simulating the above situation... and when you have completed the call, ask yourself if that is the way you would want your mother or your wife spoken to.

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap"

Pros

Can run with your own ideas. They may not necessarily be implemented, but people will listen to what you have to say. And of course, the flight benefits are one of the best reasons to work here. I do not currently work here anymore and already miss flying for next to nothing. However I am not 100% sure on how its benefits compare with the other airlines out there.

Cons

Company still has financial issues to work out - I still think AMR is way too big to go under and will survive. Sometiems hard to use benefits on popular routes that involve main AA hubs

Advice to Senior Management

Hire more talent

Pros

Work life balance was terriffic at the Corporate office - it was very easy to put in 40 - 45 hours a week if you so choose, and often it was difficult to see the motivation to do more (see downsides). The travel benefit can't be beat, as long as you are in a city where you can get fly standby out. The people are great to work with, and the work is very interesting. Working for the airlines is something others are always interested in, which makes often makes converrsations outside of the office fun. You'll always know how to "work they system" on personal travel.

Cons

Career advancement seemed non-existant, and leadership didn't seem to have any plan to improve. After working for other organizations that show intense focus on the development of talent, it was painfully obvious American lacks the long-term vision to create new leaders within the Organization. This and the long-term propsects of the industry itself make it very difficult to dedicate 10-20 years to the company. Continuous concessions between management and frontline employees make things very difficult. In summary, this is a once great customer service company that no longer focuses on customer service due to the difficulties the industry as a whole has felt over the last decade.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on your talent so they don't leave (like so many have). Short-term financial performance and sustainability of the company is clearly the top-priority, but you must have a pipeline of leaders for down the road.

Pros

The people are great and really care about their job. American, and the airline industry in general, is not a lucrative business, but most of the people are there because they care about the company and the business. The airline industry is fascinating and it gets into your blood, so it's very difficult to leave. In theory, the travel privileges are a nice bonus, but because everything is stand-by, and planes are so full, it's hard to get a seat. If you really want or need to be somewhere, it's best to just buy a ticket like everyone else does.

Cons

It's an incredibly bureaucratic place with many layers of management. Approvals are difficult to secure. Meetings often focus more on discussion than action. It's easy to see why the industry is struggling because it's physically impossible to move that many people to change when you are not a nimble organization. I mentioned the travel privileges above - this is something that is sold as a benefit but hard to realize. The other negative is the poisonous relationship between the labor unions and management. This is something that appeared to be improving until recent years when it hit the skids and it's now in the cellar. I'm not going to take sides in the argument. Bad relationships are the fault of both parties.

Advice to Senior Management

In order to drive change, you have got to move hearts and minds, and move with speed. It seemed that meetings were designed to make sure there was consensus on everything, like no one could be offended. That's one way to drive change, but it's an exceedingly slow way, because you have to make sure you follow it all the time. Take risks, make your case and do what has to be done.

Pros

Flexibility in your schedule, you are able to work around kids, family events and really anything you need to. You have total control over how much you work and what time of day and what days you wish to work. Fun crews to work with, feeling in control of your enviorment while on the job.

Cons

The downsides are being on reserve 3 times a year after being with a company for 20 years. In those 3 months the only thing you have control over is what days you have off. Being reassigned without prior warning and dealing with rude passengers.

Advice to Senior Management

Share in the wealth, there is a huge division in management and work groups and the upper level management should not be taking huge bonuses, when all the work groups have taken 30% pay cut and working with less flight attendants as well as worse work rules.