Yeah, this was what I was trying to understand. This makes it sound like the app could be a daily listing of flights they need to work. Is that all it is?
There is a top-level comment higher up that lists the individual features. One is notably absent from AA's internal systems: checking that FA schedules are consistent with the regulations governing how much they can work. But the crux of it is that is takes the FA's AA credentials, collects their personal data from disparate internal AA systems, and displays it in a sane way to the FA. And presumably at least a couple of the features (like the legality checker) are sugar on top.
I would not underestimate how terrible internal legacy systems at a company like AA could be. It seems completely reasonable to me that this app could save FAs an hour a day or more. And if they're like pilots (who are typically only paid on time from wheels up to touchdown) that is likely an unpaid hour.
There's been at least one incident where I spent hours sitting on a runway after landing. The pilot was professionally, but obviously very agitated. Does the crew not get paid for that time?
"Door closed to door open" is not just a figure of speech, so if the doors were still closed and the plane was not yet at the gate: yes, they did (thankfully).
My source here is that my wife was an FA for many years. She has a couple stories of pilots deliberately not pulling all the way up to the gate if they know they're going to have to wait anyway, purely so the crew can stay on the clock (and it doesn't make any difference to the passengers either way). Though for every one of those instances, there are a hundred of being delayed in the airport or after-boarding-but-before-closed-doors or whatever that ends in hours of unpaid work time.
As someone who is currently consulting on an airline industry project, you are absolutely correct in identifying how terrible the internal legacy systems are. Everything is built on SABRE, which was first created in 1960 and absolutely shows its age. If SABRE was a person, it could retire.
What's worse though is that inside the industry there's little awareness of the possibility of doing things differently. Everything is just layers of wrapping around the old system without any abstraction of the processes.
The article suggests this is a single app which offers a single entry point into many disparate systems, which currently flight attendants have to access individually in order to do their jobs.
I would not underestimate how terrible internal legacy systems at a company like AA could be. It seems completely reasonable to me that this app could save FAs an hour a day or more. And if they're like pilots (who are typically only paid on time from wheels up to touchdown) that is likely an unpaid hour.