traderjake said:
"The harsh reality is that over the last twelve years American lost $10.3 billion and US Airways lost $3.4 billion. US Airways filed for bankruptcy twice during that period and without the merger with America West Airlines would have liquidated." USAirways response in DOJ Doc 79 page 4.
Parker: It's negotiating. Its what they're trying to do. To answer your questions, there was no doubt they were going to liquidate. That's not an oh maybe. That's simple. Board minutes, anything you want to look at, they all say this is the only alternative.
Now, to be fair, what you DON'T know is, What would have happened to America West if we hadn't done the merger? If you care what was going to happen to them you should care what was going to happen to US!! What I do know for certain, because I was running the place, is that we didn't have enough money to make it through the winter of 2005-2006. WE HAD INSUFFICIENT FUNDS TO MAKE IT THROUGH!
We could have possibly raised more funds...and made it through...and I'm not saying we wouldn't of...
Pilot ?: Even with loads at max capacity we didn't have cash to go through...
Parker: ABSOLUTELY NOT...NOT EVEN CLOSE!
Pilot ?: I think we had a ticket price problem.
Parker: Absolutely, of course we did.
Pilot ?: We were flying full airplanes, and your telling me we didn't have enough money?
Parker: So was Delta and Northwest...and they FILED BANKRUPTCY. It ran out of cash and we (AWA) would have run out of cash. The prices only went up when seats went away, it was a race to see whose seats went away and WE (AWA) KEPT OURS (SEATS) IN THE AIR BY DOING THE MERGER!! My strong belief and it's probably not as high as ninety nine percent but in the high eighties is that we'd be in bankruptcy now. We wouldn't have liquidated, we'd be in bankruptcy and we'd be going through cutting a bunch of airplanes and all this stuff that Northwest and Delta are doing and we'd be talking about concessions, not staying where we are because...I can tell you right now that I'd be telling you look guys, everyone else has gotten their labor costs down to ours, we have or I've always told you we have a revenue DISADVANTAGE because of where we fly, Phoenix and Las Vegas, we can't have costs the same, we've got to go even lower than where they are, and that's the conversation we'd be having right now. So that's where we were headed, I think, all this #### doesn't matter. It really doesn't cause what has happened is that none of that stuff happened. What happened is A BUNCH OF PEOPLE PUT IN MONEY BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED PUTTING THESE TWO COMPANIES TOGETHER WOULD WORK AND THAT WAS A MERGER, IT WASN'T AN ACQUISITION, WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY MONEY TO GO BUY US AIRWAYS. A billion dollars in new investment, it was 867 million came in, new investment, thinking that would work and we made it work. We made it work. We got to realize where we are instead of who, what was going to happen to whom, particularly when none of us know for certain.