6 Month Anniversary of BK Filing – 5.29.12

Happy sad anniversary for American Airlines and its employees

By Terry Maxon/Reporter
[email protected] | Bio
2:56 PM on Tue., May. 29, 2012

Tuesday marks the six-month anniversary of the Chapter 11 filing by AMR, American Airlines and AMR’s various subsidiaries, and that’s probably worth noting.

Here’s what has happened since:

• The company has rejected a number of airplane leases, but has kept the majority of the 600-plus aircraft it had in its fleet as of Nov. 29.
• American on Feb. 1 proposed a business plan aimed at reducing expenses by $2 billion and increasing revenues by $1 billion annually by 2017.
• American proposed terminating its pensions, but later proposed freezing the pensions of all employees except pilots.
• After more than eight weeks of negotiations, the airline on March 27 filed motions to reject its contracts with the Allied Pilots Association, Association of Professional Flight Attendants and Transport Workers Union.
• Hearings began April 23 on the rejection motions, and continued for three of the next five weeks, ending Friday.
• Five of seven TWU bargaining units on May 15 accepted the company’s last, best offer, taking them out of the rejection proceedings.
• The original proposal would have eliminated over 14,100 jobs, including more than 11,500 union jobs. The contracts with the five TWU units reduced the job losses to just under 12,800, including about 7,500 union jobs.
• A reorganization of the management and executive ranks began at the top and has worked its way through the vice president level. The process is now focusing at management and support ranks betlow the vice presidents, with the reorganization to be finished this summer.
• American Eagle is eliminating some jobs, but its final reorganization won’t be determined until American knows how much flexibility it has. American in its pilots’ contract has proposed a significant expansion in the amount of outsourced flying, either through the use of regional partners or codesharing with larger domestic carriers.
• As of Tuesday afternoon, the bankruptcy case in the Southern District of New York has received 2,935 filings. That doesn’t include filings in four adversarial cases related to the bankruptcy filing.
• Total applications for professional fees has reached $65.7 million, with only a few bills in for April and none for May.
• US Airways has been working behind the scenes to persuade creditors to support its proposal to merge with American Airlines. The carrier and the three American unions on April 20 announced deals that outline their collective bargaining agreements in the event of a merger.
• American has agreed, with the unsecured creditors committee, to explore possible deals including mergers.