American Airlines Reviews

Pros

Challenging work, ability to move around to different jobs, smart colleagues, strong leadership

Cons

tough industry for consistent profits. MBA culture leaves few opportunities for non-MBA.

Pros

Travel benefits
Home based reps
Flexible
Ability to rise up in the company slowly.

Cons

Customers can be rude which can take a toll after a while.
Not a lot of credit to top performers
Lazy co-workers create mistakes
Promotions given to managers friends.

Advice to Senior Management

Trim the "fat" and unethical employees who are unhelpful or unwilling to help passengers.

Pros

At the moment, work flexibility.

Cons

Company is restructuring due to bankruptcy and the employees are suffering.

Advice to Senior Management

Employee engagement and satisfaction is important to create a successful company.

Pros

The airline gave you flexibility in your work schedule. You could have others work for you if you needed off.

Cons

Alot of the employees always had a chip on their shoulder. This goes way back even 40 years ago.
They hired too many people and didn't not manage personell well. Alot of them only actually worked about 4 hours or less on the job. The dress codes were never enforced much so they looked unprofessional. The unions protected alot of lazy people so the concientious worker had to do more.

Advice to Senior Management

I guess after 9/11 management hasn't figured out how to run an airline. A good run company does not have 9 losing years of profit just by bad luck. The top echlon have to take the blame for not runniing it like a real business, so not everyone gets hurt. Bankruptcy didn't have to happen? It was because of the poorly run management who never enforeced rules at a once great company.

Pros

benifits are the most i can say

Cons

too regimented with work schedules

Advice to Senior Management

consider the human side

Pros

American Airlines had great pay and benefits. The atmosphere was not threatening and was actually supportive. I also enjoyed Tulsa and the reputation American Airlines had in the area.

Cons

I don't like union jobs.

Advice to Senior Management

Break the unions and get rid of the dead weight!

Pros

Travel worldwide; short term gain; pleasure; glamour

Cons

Not for long term security; employees travel and accomodations are below par and red eye returns in one day cross country not unheard of; stagnant and set in own ways; lip service given to innovation but in the end "gut" decision making is rampant

Advice to Senior Management

Refrain from "gut" decision making; use technology and insights of consumers in more innovative ways;

Pros

always fast paced, and different each day. And very exciting to take additional time off by doing schedule swaps and allowing you to have additional time off so you can fly ANYHWERE!

Cons

some passengers are just horrible, and will ruin your day no matter how hard you try. Don't schedule things to occur right after your shift ends. Murphy's law will always come back to you!

Pros

Working with aircraft is fun, flight benefits would be nice if you could ever get off work to use them, or made enough money to be able to afford a hotel room anywhere.

Cons

Pay barely above minimum wage. They supposedly hire you as full time but you realize when you go to set up health insurance that you are part time, and they say "oh no but you get full time hours" playing dumb like they don't recognize that they are screwing you on benefits that cost twice as much for part timers and shorting you a week of vacation. You start out working a steady shift but then they suddenly put you on split schedules working at 4am some days and until 2am other days so school or personal life or even a steady sleep schedule is not an option. They also have an absolutely ludicrous rule that if a flight comes in on your shift, you cannot leave until it does.. which means if you work from 4am to 1pm and the flight at noon has a mechanical problem and wont go out until hours later or sometimes even the next day, guess who is staying? Makes no sense because there are always other crews there and it wrecks plans on a regular basis, not to mention the stress and sleep deprivation.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop acting innocent like you don't realize you are screwing your hard working "part time" employees out of the benefits they work full time hours for. Management is a good ol' boy club and you act like you listen to the employees but apparently you laugh it off when they leave because your actions show that you do not care at all about the working people who drive this company. Also, there has to be a better way of scheduling people. I have literally seen people complaining of a shift with 3 mornings and 2 nights and another of 3 nights and 2 mornings.. how did they not just end up with all nights or all mornings if the exact number of shifts worked out that way? It's like this is done just to disrupt lives and prevent anyone going to school or having a second job because it changes regularly but I see them split like this when no one wants them that way.

Pros

Flight Benefits - All employees get to fly for next to nothing as stand by passengers anywhere that American flies.
Compensation - Excellent pay for a college internship position.
Management - Engineering Leads and Managers are intelligent and fair, most have worked their way up to their position from the very bottom.
Experience - Many employees have 10+ years of experience in their field and several have 20 or 30+ years.

Cons

Outdated technology - many processes are outdated but still functional
Some corporate inefficiencies - IT is slow to respond, Lots of redundant systems/paperwork

Advice to Senior Management

Be stricter on inefficiencies. Do not allow employees to continue to work at a rate or make mistakes that cost the airline money. Trim the fat.