7.01.20 – APFA MIA Base Brief – Today’s Announcement

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

MIA Flight Attendants,

APFA Leadership was given an in-depth briefing prior to Jill’s announcement this afternoon. Doug Parker, CEO, Brian Znotins, VP of Network and Schedule Planning, Vasu Raja, VP of International Revenue Management, and Jill Surdek, VP of Flight Service were on the call. I will share with you what I learned today.

Doug Parker opened the briefing with an overview of the financial landscape. He said traffic has picked up from a negative revenue position in April to 1 billion in June, as compared to 4 billion in June of 2019, representing a 75% decrease in revenue. The uptick in the virus has been challenging, but he indicated we would get better at managing it. Parker indicated that American was able to achieve a tremendous amount of liquidity that would be able to sustain the airline for at least one year, if not more. In addition, American is aggressively pursuing additional loans to add to that liquidity.

Parker said that we would come out of this a smaller airline. The reductions would vary by workgroup, and that his management team would work with APFA and other Unions to mitigate as many furloughs as possible. This would include another VEOP and leave packages.

Brian Znotins, VP of Network Planning, highlighted the upcoming changes to our network. With business demand down due to corporate travel policies, Znotins said that if we didn’t make money on certain routes in 2019, there was no reason to believe they would be profitable in 2021. He also stated that the airline operates on certainty and historical data. This makes putting together a schedule extremely challenging absent of that criteria.

So, what will happen to Miami? I was told the frequency to EZE, GRU, SCL, and GIG would be one daily round trip when service returns in the fall and winter. MVD is on the bubble and being reevaluated. American is not willing to surrender any slots to LHR systemwide, and the second-round trip will return later in the year. BCN is scheduled to return in October, and CDG and MAD next summer. MXP, unfortunately, did not achieve the profitability necessary to sustain the route. There was much more optimism in the Caribbean, specifically in the US territories. The domestic market will produce the bulk of the revenue in the immediate future. Obviously, Miami can expect a notable decrease in size due to the reductions and suspension of service in the international markets.

With the announcement of RDU and STL closing, I advised Parker that if the Latin American bases remained open or did not significantly downsize, the optics would make American look very un-American. They are evaluating all costs associated with those bases given the reduction in flying. I will report out when I have additional information.

APFA has been in negotiations this week to secure a VEOP, and additional leave packages to offset the overage numbers released today. I remain optimistic that we will be able to reduce those numbers significantly. Additionally, we requested a longer timeframe for our members to evaluate the VEOP and leave options when introduced.

I want to assure all of you that we will get through this. We persevered through 9/11, restructuring, and bankruptcy, and we will persevere through this pandemic.

In Solidarity,

Randy Trautman
APFA MIA Base President
[email protected]