Updated, 3:15 p.m.: American Airlines retirees to picket annual meeting Wednesday over travel benefits

One of the first things the new management at American Airlines Group did after last December’s merger of American and US Airways was to adopt common rules for non-revenue travel for employees and retired employees of both airlines.

In the process, the new policies, issued Jan. 2, reduced some benefits for American retirees and greatly angered many of them in the process.

The retirees have sent letters, signed petitions and had meetings with the new executives running American in attempts to get the policies changed back to the old rules. So far, nothing has changed.

To apply what pressure they can, some retirees are planning to picket outside the first annual meeting of the new American Airlines Group on Wednesday. The meeting will be held at 885 Third Avenue in New York City, in the law offices of Latham & Watkins LLP.

There’s also a petition on Change.org asking CEO Doug Parker to “honor commitments made to American Airlines retirees.” As of Tuesday morning, the petition had 1,488 on-line supporters. Two similar petitions on Coworker.com had 6,960 and 2,100 signatures as of this posting.

AA retirees are unhappy about a number of the changes, but the primary sore point is that they would have lower priority than active employees in getting available seats. Under the system prior to the US Airways-American merger, American’s retirees had equal status with active employees.

Thirty years ago when planes frequently flew half empty and load factors of 70 percent were unusual, the issue of who was first in line wasn’t so important. But today, with loads exceeding 80 percent most of the year and in the high 80s during the summer, it’s become much harder to find an unfilled, free seat for employees, both active and retired.

In addition, the old AA gave retirees 24 passes each year for one-way trips. These were the so-called buddy passes that they could give to family members or friends. The new policy reduces the number of those passes to eight. Active employees get 16.

UPDATE, 3:15 p.m. Tuesday: American Airlines spokesman John McDonald offered this comment on the situation:

“We put a lot of thought into combining the travel privileges from American Airlines and US Airways, knowing that we had many different groups to consider and would need to make some changes for everyone. We did our best to take elements from both programs so everyone would continue to have some of the same privileges they have enjoyed previously. With more than 700,000 active employees, retirees and their dependents eligible for free travel, we had to create a program that accommodated all stakeholder interests, and combined programs from both legacy airlines.

“Under the updated program, our retirees will be able to enjoy vacation passes, buddy passes and no-fee travel for their eligible dependents. In addition, the parents and registered companions of retirees will also be able to enjoy expanded travel privileges, as their tickets previously counted toward retirees’ buddy pass banks. Our retirees still board ahead of more than half of the people who are eligible to travel free of charge or on a discounted ticket.”