divjnky
18909
692
10
https://news.aa.com/news/news-details/2024/American-Airlines-reports-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2023-financial-results-CORP-FI-01/default.aspx#:~:text=Record%20full%2Dyear%20revenue%20of,%241.21%20per%20diluted%20share%2C%20respectively.
https://viewfromthewing.com/american-airlines-gives-poverty-verification-letters-to-newly-hired-flight-attendants/
Interleaver11111111
Corporate welfare
csiscotty13
We should flood their ticket service with requests to try and crash it until they make the changes. Either that or we need a few billion people to tell them publicly that we don't like their style and we won't be using them again (not like we could with the fact that no prices ever go down anymore). It's a win win for us and a holy shit moment for them.
bekindtoanimals
This is dystopian af
ThatShiftyMonkey
Ragebait. So....they provide a letter to new employees that case workers can use to expedite getting these people onto assistance programs? Why is that a bad thing? Would it be better to wait until they have a few paychecks first?
comacomacomacomachameleon
822m profit on 53b in revenue. 1.5% profit is pretty tight margins.
GiantFlyingLabia
But you guys, what about the poor executives? They might have to wait a month to get that new guest wing on their summer house if they raised flight attendant pay ☹️
mcodger
sadly, there are no 'poor' executives
whitefoxkei
iwishjtmoneywasstillavailableitsmyoldvideogamemoniker
Remember they took our money, distributed it to the top 1% of their companies and then did the things they promised they wouldn't.
DreamPhreak
Trickle up economics
backrideup9
I like the part where they blamed not having a new, better contract on damn near everything except their own laziness, greed and unwillingness to negotiate.
springer57
Won't you idiots please consider the shareholders before posting this crap? /s
LincLoud
The machine must be dismantled
Porfirij
late stage capitalism doing exactly what it was designed to do: privatise the wins to create a monetary elite ruling everything, and socialise the losses to create a massive pool of powerless working people with basically no vertical mobility within the system.
StellarJay77
And convince those towards the bottom to fight amongst one another over the scraps the masters deign upon them. We're all just starved dogs to the 1%
DJOldguy
Why re we subsidising employment in our taxes? There a real problem here for Trump though. If he cuts Social Security, how will these Corporations, AA, Walmart, etc, who don't pay their staff a livable wage, going to remain open if their staff are suffering from scurvy and malnutrition?
OldSchoolNewRules
Seanspeed
Obviously these people deserve better treatment, but in terms of the financials, airlines are not generally doing well. $822m profit sounds great, but compared to overall revenue, it's very small, and ignores that MASSIVE fact that they're literally $40b in debt. That profit isn't just free cash to use on whatever.
megavolts
Seems to fit the American definition of the GOP
AltruisticDefenestrator
I do see a problem - it is working as intended.
nclu
Well, if the government makes a program to subsidize something its basically malfeasance to leave that money sitting on the table. Part of our visceral reaction here isn't simply the low wages, it's the name of the program. If we had a UBI (and low income assistance is as close as we have) then companies assisting employees with paperwork to make sure they got their entitlement we wouldn't be angry about it. No one's mad at the place I work because they help us get pre-tax transit pass
laxpatrol
Yup. Capitalistic engine on warp drive.
crodrigues
and people fight me whenever I explain how the tipping culture is their way into voluntary slavery, and instead of badgering the clients for not tipping, or not tipping well, they should direct that hate and vitriol to their own bosses. but then again, we are so fucking brainwashed and used to think "work until you die is a good thing" by now that no one can use their brains properly anymore. we are destroying ourselves for no good reason, and we keep doing it until there's nothing else left.
getadogupya
neffstradamus
I have an MBA. I understand The System better than 95% of the population. It's SO FUCKED.
WheezyLex
Can you please explain the difference here between the $53 billion in revenue and $821 million in earnings?
I haven’t looked at the numbers, but that $821 million doesn’t seem as though it would raise flight attendant’s wages all that much (if there are really 28,000 flight attendants at AA - I googled that). It would account to an extra $29,000+ per attendant, it looks like - a big difference for sure! - but is the $821 million above and beyond operating expenses, pay, etc. or something else?
MissPhoenix56
How do you take 18 pages to describe a uniform
OddlyPacific
Now they can pay back the billions they got in 2020 from taxpayers /s. The plan was that they would use it to not lay off workers but they just did that anyway and nobody could stop them.
StellarJay77
They didn't really lay off workers, just figured out a way to pay them poverty wages so they could subsidize their paychecks with government money from social services then keep the profits.
OddlyPacific
I was given the option of moving from the central coast of California to Boise or Houston. They were generous enough to pay the move! ($0.52 per mile paid after 90 says at new station) I didn’t take it.
StellarJay77
Every big corporation in America is like this. The disdain they all have for paying their employees decent wages is palpable. It's really sad that very few companies realize that paying their employees well means their customers will get treated well and they'll have a solid sustainable business for decades that way. Most have chosen the pump and dump strategy of extracting as much profit as possible as quickly as possible and fuck the future.
JohnnyLawlessEsq
Paying your employees so little that they require government assistance is an implicit government subsidy.
StellarJay77
As far as I'm concerned, a company has failed if it is making any profit whatsoever while any employee is making poverty wages. These businesses need to die.
stewgru
Oh. I’m not too sure on the validity of the profits. Their stock didn’t go up much.
Rubyrose99
27k BEFORE TAXES? Jfc between this and Boeing basically putting a question mark on their lives, who would ever want to do this?
stewgru
Any company that has full time employees on government assistance needs to be taxed the shit out of. If the government has to pay for their people to live, the company better pay the government.
Elroydb
$822 million profit on $53 billion revenue is less than a 2% margin
Seanspeed
A bigger thing OP is ignoring is that American Airlines are $40b in debt!
ThatShiftyMonkey
Thank you. That was my main take away too.
divjnky
The cynic in me says that with $53 billion in revenue that the airline is just using a version 'studio accounting' where a lot of the actual profit is hidden, sheltered, and or pumped back into the stock buybacks so it doesn't show as profit but still benefits the company well beyond actual operating costs.
Seanspeed
That's just you creating a conspiracy to avoid admitting that your narrative isn't accurate.
ThatShiftyMonkey
Yeah, that'd be the cynic in you and not the realist. The realist in you would recognize that it's an incredibly expensive and competitive industry that is constantly financially scrutinized. A 2% margin is not price gouging or being unfair, it's just one big mistake from being unprofitable.
LawFiveGuy
While this may be stupid, I don't mean it to be. I've never been a flight attendant and I've never been in a union. But given how important flight attendants are to the process, and how beneficial unions can be, how is this not taken care of yet?
Fireninja404
several things I can think of that may be happening. Possibly corporate put together a legal document too complex for the average person to understand but skewed things in their favor. perhaps during a past negotiation period, the government stepped in on the side of corporate. third, like all leadership, maybe the union leaders has succumb to corruption. and lastly maybe the union members have become defeatist for whatever reason
StellarJay77
The answer as to why is money. Money put in the (alt)right hands makes regulations that allow this.
Porfirij
one big problem: that'd be "cOmMuNisM" - and every american knows that's just evil and as soon as workers gain some representation or power everyone will immediately starve or something... /s
Nostradamuswaswrong
I’d need to see their books where the other $52B of revenue went that they were left with only $822M income.
EndocrineResearcher
Probably related to buying shitty Boeing jets
Nostradamuswaswrong
Yup, revenue isn't profits. From revenue they've got to take out all the dozens of expenses it takes to run an airline, but I'd want to see specifically how much went to C-suite compensation and bonuses as well as stock buybacks to inflate share prices, because that's bullshit they do to make it look like they don't have the income to justify employee pay increases when they say "Oh, we're just not profitable enough."
EndocrineResearcher
I'll be honest, I just wanted to take the opportunity to shit on Boeing for making planes that don't stay in one piece.
ThatShiftyMonkey
Running an airline probably? It's an incredibly expensive industry to operate in.
Nostradamuswaswrong
Yes, but as I said, I'd want to see how much revenue went to C-suite compensation and stock buybacks, etc.
ThatShiftyMonkey
https://fortune.com/2023/11/11/tailspin-american-airlines-stock-debt-travel-outlook/
I only skimmed it, but looks like they've been struggling w debt and haven't done a buyback since 2019.
CEO total comp was 31million, less than 0.06% of revenue.
SwissScars
You've finished 2023 already?
Interleaver11111111
Are you still in 2023? The rest of the world moved on to 2024 some time back in January.
SwissScars
is it any better? I struggled getting out of the 20th thingy so proceeding with caution.
armagetz
Yeah there’s a problem, but it’s not as cut as dried as Imgur would like. In most equivalent roles, a number of these issues wouldn’t be present. But I was told that unions were the fount of milk and honey and the only path to an idyllic work place?
armagetz
The post even attests one of the biggest problems of unions: the overwhelming element that tenure has. Note that they highlight the effect as being on new hires. Therefore it stands to speculation that the reason why there isn’t a strike is because the majority of its members aren’t bothered. The union, not the company, is choosing not to protect the interests of the workers going without here.
TreasonousCheeto
It seems that if people just refused to take the job at current wages, things would be forced to change. If I want a job, but it doesn’t pay enough, I no longer want that job.
TalaayaCosplay
Not everyone can afford to refuse a job, especially the people at or near poverty level.
TreasonousCheeto
But many can. And if they did, shit would change fast. They can’t fly more than 19 people at a time without flight attendants per the law.
SoundBites
I was supposed to fly to Cleveland for work back in March on an AA flight. They closed the gangway door to "make some repairs" and I said out loud to "just get us another plane." With all the recent shennaigans with doors and landing gear falling off, among other things. I really wasn't in the mood for this crap. Andm due to the delay, I was going to miss my connecting lfight in DFW.
The ganway door was re-opened after the "Repairs were made" and we started to board. 1/2
SoundBites
When I got to the door, we stood there for several minutes as the boarding process seemed to have stalled. Eventually, the entire flight crew walked off the plane with the captain announcing that they refused to fly this particular plane.
I called AA and cancelled the rest of my trip after finidng out that all flights were booked solid for the rest of the day and getting to Cleveland woud take about 36 hours of travel. I told the company I wasn't gonna make it to Cleveland....
SoundBites
Bonus: Since then AA pilots have come forward citing many safety issues with AA planes.
https://theweek.com/business/american-airlines-safety
undercoverles
Fwiw I think this would have benefitted without the bits about how inconvenient it was for you that they didn’t want to fly an unsafe plane.
SoundBites
My main point was that it was just an overall shitshow. I'm glad the flight crew walked off the plane. I was definitely spooked after that and really didn't want to fly on another plane that day. And, I couldn't even if I wanted to.
undercoverles
But other than that, hell yeah for them advocating for themselves. Just careful in the future yeah? Corpos use stories like this to demonize