AMR Nears Cuts for Eagle With Plans Going to Unions March 21

AMR Corp. (AMR), the bankrupt parent of American Airlines, said it will present cost-cutting plans for its American Eagle unit to the regional carrier’s unions on March 21.

Plans for restructuring Eagle must proceed even though AMR hasn’t reached agreements with unions at American on $1.25 billion in labor concessions, Bruce Hicks, a company spokesman, said in an interview today. Changes being sought in American’s pilot contract will affect flying done by Eagle.

AMR’s Nov. 29 bankruptcy filing ended plans for a 2012 spinoff of Eagle, which supplies more than 90 percent of American’s regional passenger feed to hub airports from smaller cities. American’s Feb. 1 plan for eliminating 13,000 jobs didn’t cover Eagle, which had 14,237 employees at the time.

The Transport Workers Union told members in an e-mail that Eagle Chief Executive Officer Dan Garton will brief labor leaders on the savings goals. The Air Line Pilots Association declined to immediately comment, and the Association of Flight Attendants didn’t immediately respond to e-mails.

AMR’s plan for a stand-alone Eagle was envisioned as a way to let Fort Worth, Texas-based American seek less-expensive options for regional flights.

Eagle said in January it would stop flying 21 ATR turboprops based at Dallas-Fort Worth airport as part of changes in AMR’s bankruptcy, and last month said it would pull nine more based in Miami. The regional unit told 218 workers in December that some of them might be laid off as a result of such changes.

To contact the reporter on this story: Mary Schlangenstein in Dallas at maryc.s@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Ed Dufner at edufner@bloomberg.net