AMR: Former CEO Carty won't get severance package FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) =97 Donald Carty, who resigned under pressure as= chief=20 executive of American Airlines, will not receive a severance package but=20 will get more than $8 million in benefits earned during 25 years with the=20 carrier, the company said Friday. The board of parent AMR Corp. decided=20 that Carty will only receive pension, stock options and other benefits he=20 earned =97 and "nothing special after that," said American spokesman Al=20 Becker. Carty will receive a $79,000 annual pension payment from the=20 deferred benefit plan and a one-time, after-tax payment of $8.2 million=20 from assets of the supplemental executive retirement program, Becker said.= =20 He also gets medical and travel benefits, Becker said. "Mr. Carty clearly=20 understood the financial situation American is in, and he did not seek any= =20 special severance package from the company," Becker told The Associated=20 Press. He said the board decided against a special severance deal=20 "recently" but disclosed the move Friday. Carty stepped down as CEO and=20 chairman of Fort Worth-based American and AMR in April amid an uproar over= =20 large bonuses and retirement benefits for top executives, including=20 himself. The perks were not disclosed until after employees approved deep=20 concessions to keep the airline out of bankruptcy. Many compensation experts had predicted that Carty would get a generous=20 severance package because his voluntary resignation helped preserve the=20 concessions, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Carty had worked to win= =20 union approval of $1.8 billion in annual labor cost reductions as the=20 world's largest airline teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. But tenuous approval of the concessions nearly unraveled when union members= =20 learned that Carty and other top executives had been granted bonuses and=20 funding for their supplemental pension plan several months earlier. The=20 company delayed disclosing the perks until employees were nearly done=20 voting on the concessions. Unions representing flight attendants and ground= =20 workers threatened to vote anew on the concessions, and rejection seemed=20 likely. Board member David Boren called for Carty's removal. Carty apologized for the tardy disclosure of the executive benefits and=20 announced that the bonuses had been canceled. But the furor continued, and= =20 Carty quit April 24, acknowledging that he had become a "barrier" to the=20 company's long-term success. The board named Gerard Arpey as CEO. The next= =20 day, the last labor group gave final approval to the labor concessions, and= =20 AMR avoided bankruptcy. At the company's shareholder meeting last month,=20 new chairman Edward Brennan suggested that American might not pay severance= =20 to Carty. Carty became chairman and chief executive of both American and=20 AMR in 1998, succeeding Robert Crandall, and sought to improve the=20 carrier's long-troubled labor-management relations. But acquisitions that=20 Carty completed =97 of Reno Air in 1998 and TWA in 2001 =97 touched off new= =20 rounds of labor unrest. Carty also was forced to deal with the airline=20 industry downturn that begin with a weak economy in 2001 and accelerated=20 with the terrorist attacks that September. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Mas Site: www.tntisland.com/tntrecords/mas2003/ Site of the Week: http://www.carib-link.net/naparima/naps.html TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************