FORT WORTH -- It's been a bad week for American Airlines, and the news keeps getting worse. Just days after hiking fees and talking about lay-offs, the airline's executives renewed their stock plans. That means they could pocket millions of dollars.

The board for American Airlines gave the compensation plan a green light this week. Executives were given hundreds of performance shares and the pilots union is frustrated and very upset.

According to an American Airlines spokesman, they didn't give any money to these managers, but gave then an opportunity to earn value. In other words, if they deliver and they get the company back on target, perform well, then they will get a good return on those shares, and that will be a good thing for all employees, and the entire company.

But for the pilots union this talk is getting old. They say these executives keep on getting compensated and the performance has not improved. The union claims AMR is worried more about stock performance, than the company's performance when it comes to employees and even passengers.

“The executives of AMR Corporation promise ‘pull together, win together’, ‘shared pain, shared gain’, and they betrayed all of their employees. Now it’s, ‘pull together, we win’,“ said Captain Karl Schricker, Allied Pilots Association.

The union says the compensation plan needs to change. Again, these executives could take home millions of dollars, but that payout, we are told, comes after three years.

E-mail mdiaz@wfaa.com