Did anyone catch last night's (Friday, October 10) airing of the Kudlow & Cramer financial report on MSN? The pair hosted an airline analyst and the topic was AA's return (?) to profitablity and the concomitant rise in share prices. I can never remember who is who in the duo, but the chubbier and more aggressive of the Kudlow & Cramer team went on his usual anti-union, anti-worker tirade and said AA workers haven't given enough. Our insurance is still too generous and our days off are still too frequent. The chubby aggressor went on to say that the unions are bringing down the airlines while other non-unionized airlines are thriving; the fact that Southwest is more heavily unionized than AA was conveniently omitted from his argument. When the analyst, to his credit, chimed in that AA employees (both union and non-union) gave a lot in concessions earlier this year in the spirit of cooperation, the chubby aggressor shouted him down with, "Not enough! Not enough!" The guest analyst then attempted to illustrate that AA still has no idea of a pricing strategy, market strategy, or route network strategy, and that it is experiencing this current improvement as a result of employee concessions and a fickle economy and remains subject to any economic vicissitudes. All in all, it was an interesting, if not irritating, broadcast. If anyone can get his/her hands on the transcript it would be good reading.
Peace,
Art Tang
Peace,
Art Tang