KC v. Tulsa v. Fort Worth: Whose overhaul base closes??

tat2kc · Post by **tat2kc** » Wed Sep 10, 2003 5:11 pm

A federal judge just ruled that families of victims of 9/11 can sue the airlines, ruling that airline security should have forseen the threat of hijacking and flying the planes into buildings. The airlines and related defendents will be in deep deep financial trouble over this. AA may be in bigger trouble than it is in now.

Post by **dangerboy** » Thu Sep 11, 2003 11:59 am

Tulsa voters approved rasing their sales tax to give a $22 million gift to AA, and AA is now saying that the Tulsa and Ft. Worth facilities will remain open. The fate of the KC facility will depend on the size of AA's fleet going forward.

http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansa ... st=b_ln_hl

ShowME · Post by **ShowME** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 7:24 am

Union Officials Say KC, Fort Worth Bases Will Not Close
Thursday September 11, 2003 8:12pm Posted By: Kevin King

Fort Worth, TX - Union officials in Fort Worth and Kansas City say they have been told American Airlines will keep both maintenance bases. So, where does that put Tulsa's base, a day after the airline made plans to add work to its facility?

Wednesday, Tulsa's maintenance base vice president Carmine Romano said Tulsa's base would not be closing. But, earlier this year, American Airlines said it planned to close one of its three bases -- in either Kansas City, Fort Worth or Tulsa. So, does this mean those plans have been put off?

Airline spokeswoman Sonja Whitemon told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that no decisions have been made on any of the bases and that the airline still has a "number of details to work out."

All three bases have been jockeying for position in the past few months. Voters in Tulsa approved 22.3 million dollars in sales tax revenue to make improvements to its base. Kansas City and Fort Worth also have incentive packages for the airline.

The only move that has been made by the airline is Wednesday's announcement that work was being added to its maintenance base. That work consists of landing gear repairs for the Boeing 737 fleet, installation of overhead bins in the MD-80 and a new heavy check line for the MD-80 that will be brought to Tulsa in November.

The total impact as far as jobs is concerned is 390 -- sixty jobs from the landing gear and overhead bin work and 330 from layoffs that we're told will not happen now, thanks to the addition of that heavy check line.

American has more than eight thousand employees in Tulsa -- by far its largest work force at any of the bases.
source: KTUL.com

How would you have liked to go to the polls to approve $22.3 mil for these guys and they pull this. Something tells me that American really doesn't wanna screw over KC and get a bad rep. Now does the State of Missouri's incentives start kicking in as well since they're leaving the overhaul base open for the forseeable future?

tat2kc · Post by **tat2kc** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 7:05 pm

An internal memo was given to KMBC today that says that American is moving its warehouse facility from the overhaul base to Tulsa. This portion of the overhaul base employs 205 stock clerks. Not sure what other employees are in that dept. The reporter asked city council members what they thought. They had not seen the memo yet, but were "concerned" that American was not living up to their verbal committment to keep the current jobs at KCI for at least 2 years.

Seems like American did not waste much time in going back on their word.

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 11:28 pm

Screw American Airlines...it is inevitable, AA will close that thing at KCI whether we like it or not. Why prolong the agony? Give $200 million to JetBlue, Frontier or Southwest. Quit wasting money on this dead horse.

Is it just politically incorrect to tell AA and their jobs to go to hell or is Barnes & Co in bed with them?

Post by **dangerboy** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 11:39 pm

trailerkid wrote:Screw American Airlines...it is inevitable, AA will close that thing at KCI whether we like it or not. Why prolong the agony? Give $200 million to JetBlue, Frontier or Southwest. Quit wasting money on this dead horse.

Is it just politically incorrect to tell AA and their jobs to go to hell or is Barnes & Co in bed with them?

2,000 is a lot of jobs to kiss-off, especially when the entire COUNTRY only added 1,000 jobs last month. Most of these jobs are high-wage, skilled trade jobs, which are even rarer in these days of call centers and retail. Yes, these jobs are going to slowly dwindle as AA downsizes, but why tell AA to go to hell when no one else wants to come and fill the gap? JetBlue et. al might add flights at KCI, but none of them are big enough use a huge overhal shop. Many outsource that work anyway.

trailerkid · Post by **trailerkid** » Wed Jan 14, 2004 11:42 pm

How long will the 2,000 jobs stay here, are they long-term? As I said, it is prolonging the agony. It is like working for Zenith TVs.

Slappy the Wang · Post by **Slappy the Wang** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 10:34 am

Dangerboy, where's you get your stat about the nation only adding 1000 jobs last month? I say Beee Esssss. There are tens of millions of small businesses in the US...I find it extremely difficult to believe that less than 1% didn't hire at least one person.

Post by **bahua** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 10:49 am

AA needs to get a lot smaller, or go out of business. If government subsidy is a major piece of your bottom line, then you're not supposed to be around.

Post by **staubio** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 10:59 am

Slappy the Wang wrote:Dangerboy, where's you get your stat about the nation only adding 1000 jobs last month? I say Beee Esssss. There are tens of millions of small businesses in the US...I find it extremely difficult to believe that less than 1% didn't hire at least one person.

Slappy:

Employment numbers are reported by the government quite often. You can find the info from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

...and sure, those businesses you speak of might be hiring, but others are firing. The net gain is neglible. Job creation is dead and payroll growth is even more discouraging. We aren't getting new jobs and we aren't getting paid more, so every job we can save is a positive move in this environment.

Maybe the economic environment is coming around for business, but there isn't a lot of reinvestment going on and consumers aren't seeing benefits.

Post by **dangerboy** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 12:01 pm

Slappy the Wang wrote:Dangerboy, where's you get your stat about the nation only adding 1000 jobs last month? I say Beee Esssss. There are tens of millions of small businesses in the US...I find it extremely difficult to believe that less than 1% didn't hire at least one person.

It's the truth. It was widely reported in most news media the last few days. The government predicted adding over 100,000 jobs in Decmber, but only 1,000 were actually created. Although the unemployment rate dropped slightly because 300,000 people stopped looking for jobs and dropped out of the labor market.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=s ... onomy_dc_8

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