Uncertain future for AA employees and Tulsa

Dave has been working at the American Airlines Tulsa maintenance facility for almost 15 years, but he's pretty certain that in a year, he won't have that job at the plant.

“It would be only human to feel betrayed. American is going to lose a lot of good people when this happens,” Dave said speaking about a massive restructuring the airline revealed Wednesday.

He works on planes five days a week with co-workers who are now wondering what their future holds.

“I believe it's worse than they ever expected now, where the rubber meets the road was today on Wednesday,” Dave told FOX23.

Dave didn't hold back when FOX23 asked who he blames for this massive restructuring.

“(It’s) the poor management to me. It has brought this company down. They can blame labor, but it's not true.”

American plans to cut 2,100 jobs in Tulsa, but the local Transport Workers Union vows to fight to keep jobs here.

“We will be fighting all the way to reduce the numbers that they have mentioned,” Rick Mullings with TWU said.

Dave says this doesn't just affect American employees, it affects American families.

“There are some worried people because these are our families here; we're talking about feeding our kids, paying our bills, keeping our house.”

The local union says it will be negotiating with American to try and bring the job cut numbers down for the Tulsa plant, but if they can't agree on what is fair a bankruptcy judge will make that decision later this year.

MIT Research Engineer Bill Swelbar says Tulsa actually made out fairly well when American Airlines announced its plans to trim the company’s workforce by 13,000.

“I don't think it is the beginning of the end. What's incredible for Tulsa is that there will still be an incredible maintenance operations that remains.”

He believes the job cuts could open new doors, like a maintenance facility for a regional airline that flies smaller planes over shorter distances.

“There may well be an opportunity for a city like Tulsa to transition overnight to help and find ways to fix these smaller airplanes,” Swelbar told FOX23.