Agreed on the B744. That rumor seems to be dying down alot over the last month. The 'dog' domestic range B777-200/300 rumors are also questionable. The longer range birds are probably in bigger demand around the world and therefore less available.
As for shifting resources. Good luck. Although MAH* makes a good argument for AA's business travelers remaining with AA, I wonder about AA's long term business model for flying around the world. Oneworld makes a good slogan, but what does the AA Corp sales guy say to the AAdvantage Plutonium client after hearing the DAL or CAL sales guy tell him they can fly his people from Bangkok to Beijing to Johannesburg to Kuwait to Copenhagen all on their own companies aircraft, and will credit all their miles if they switch? Does he tell the guy, "Mr Arpey says it doesn't matter if AA flys you, it is no concern for you, we consider your ticket as Metal nuetral". :blink:
I've seen this in action in a Major European city with one of our Oneworld partners. Confused travelers approach me in my AA uniform. They were on the 3 leg of 4, with an AA ticket folder with AA Flight numbered tickets. They insisted they flew all on AA. They hadn't flown a minute on an AA aircraft since departing the NW USA. Their last leg was on another "Metal Nuetral" flight. I just sent them to the airport info kisok. Personally, I see the high end traveler dealing with a couple of these BS instances and heading to UAL/DAL. It's probably a good plan to have alliances in todays world. It gives the traveler an option to grab a flight from Cairo at different times through LHR or MAD for instance. I still think you need to maintain your own brand as one of the options.
What a great response... how many galley carts have you pushed in an aisle to advise us of this?
Unless something changes, I see AA dissolving into nothing long term if trying to compete with UAL/DAL.