Over a hundred American Airlines retirees gathered outside of the airline's Fort Worth headquarters on Wednesday, protesting changes to their travel benefits.
Chanting "AA, what do you say! Retirees are here to stay!" and holding signs that read "equal rights for retirees," the retirees walked up and down Amon Carter Boulevard.
Retirees are upset about changes to their travel benefits and complained at American’s annual shareholder meeting in June that they do not like having lower priority than active employees when it comes to getting available seats.
They currently have equal status with active employees and some used their travel benefits to get to Fort Worth for the rally on Wednesday as the policy change does not go into effect until after Labor Day.
Arlington resident Marc Bowers was a crew chief at American and retired in 2012. His shirt read "Shame on American. I worked 44 1/2 years then they stripped me of my earned benefits."
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Bowers said it is not fair for new hires to get empty seats on a flight before someone like himself who had worked for the company for decades.
"I think that we deserve all the benefits that were promised to us the day we were hired in," Bowers said.
American merged with US Airways last year and as management works to integrate the two carriers, changes have been made to employee and retiree benefits.
"We put a lot of thought into combing the travel privileges from American Airlines and US Airways, knowing that we had many different groups to consider and everyone would experience some change," the company said in a statement. "With more than 700,000 active employees, retirees and their dependents eligible for free travel, we did our best to create a program that accommodated all stakeholder interests, and combined programs from both airlines."
Retirees picketing outside of the headquarters building were offered free water from the company. Several cars passed by honking in support of the retirees' efforts.
-Andrea Ahles
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