Settlement on 55/5 Plan and Retiree Travel

We are pleased to announce that a settlement has been reached between the CWA/IBT Association and American Airlines regarding the 55/5 Plan for passenger service employees. Last September, the CWA/IBT filed a grievance against American, which was planning to discontinue retiree travel for employees who were at least 55 and had completed at least 5 years of service at the time of retirement. The discontinuance of retiree travel would have gone into effect as of January 1, 2017.

As a result of the Agreement finalized this week, American will offer retiree travel to both LUS and LAA passenger service employees who retire from American before or on June 30, 2018, as long as they satisfy the 55/5 requirements. This includes LUS employees who retired between January 1, 2017 and July 5, 2017, the date this Agreement went into effect.

However, as of July 1, 2018, no passenger service employees (neither LUS nor LAA) will be entitled to retiree travel under the 55/5 Plan. In fact, American has ended the 55/5 Plan for other work groups and is working to bring all work groups under the new 65-point plan by July 1, 2018.

As of this week, the grievance regarding retiree travel and the 55/5 Plan has been withdrawn from the System Board of Arbitration.

The full text of the Agreement is available HERE