America West/ata

[Light Years]

Word is that America West will buy ATA's Chicago Midway hub along with thier 757-300 and 737 fleet. They have found a cheap way to double thier size overnight, and bring thier presence to the midwest and east as well as the west.

There's frequent speculation about the complementary route networks of US Airways and America West, except no Midwest hub- well there's Chicago, the highest O&D in the midwest.

With all of the suspicious America Westing of US labor contracts and a similar "LCC hybrid" business plan, could US be a takeover target if it gets healthy?

Picture a major network airline, the size of an American or United, with the hybrid LCC plan. Hubs in PHL, CLT, MDW, PHX, focus cities at BOS, DCA, LGA, FLL, LAS, LAX.

Just some speculation on my part.

 

[mrman]

Word is that America West will buy ATA's Chicago Midway hub along with thier 757-300 and 737 fleet. They have found a cheap way to double thier size overnight, and bring thier presence to the midwest and east as well as the west.

There's frequent speculation about the complementary route networks of US Airways and America West, except no Midwest hub- well there's Chicago, the highest O&D in the midwest.

With all of the suspicious America Westing of US labor contracts and a similar "LCC hybrid" business plan, could US be a takeover target if it gets healthy?

Picture a major network airline, the size of an American or United, with the hybrid LCC plan. Hubs in PHL, CLT, MDW, PHX, focus cities at BOS, DCA, LGA, FLL, LAS, LAX.

Just some speculation on my part.

[post="190860"][/post]​

AW will buy assets of the airline, not the airline itself. If any airline bought US they would by the assets, planes, hubs. They would not buy stock. They would not want the liabilites (both people and litigation) of ATA or US.

 

[exagony]

I can't see AWA/ATA picking up U and its employee base. Some of the most disgruntled, over paid in the industry (prior to the BK). Just what they need as they try to get back into financial health ( as if they ever had any) - a bunch of prima donna's from U trying to get super senority over the folks at AWA/ATA. If anything they'll wait until U liquidates and get a/c and routes for pennies on the dollar. That way they'll be able to pick who works for them verses having them forced upon them. :angry2: :elvis:

 

[oldiebutgoody]

And, NO FRAGMENTATION/SCOPE or FURLOUGH protection if ALPA votes for the T/A. GREAT MOVE, ALPA! But, at least a few will keep medical coverage IF they retire by 1 Jan 05!

 

[oldiebutgoody]

I can't see AWA/ATA picking up U and its employee base. Some of the most disgruntled, over paid in the industry (prior to the BK). Just what they need as they try to get back into financial health ( as if they ever had any) - a bunch of prima donna's from U trying to get super senority over the folks at AWA/ATA. If anything they'll wait until U liquidates and get a/c and routes for pennies on the dollar. That way they'll be able to pick who works for them verses having them forced upon them. :angry2: :elvis:

[post="190870"][/post]​

U's employees are what has kept the airline going through all the mismanagement. They have been EXCELLENT to the customers, despite all the greif foist upon them. ANY airline would be lucky to get them. And, they ARE NOT over paid by industry standards. The higher employee costs which the compny says they have are due to the airline structure, NOT the pay of the employee groups. I can see that you must be a disgruntled EXemployee, so you can see that the "dead weight" is gone already!

 

[sfb]

The "America Westing" of US Airways labor contracts isn't happening in preparation for a merger with AWA -- they're just the lowest-wage contracts out there for an airline operating equivalent fleet types. UAIR probably could be a takeover target if the airline ever got healthy, but that won't happen until the non-labor CASM comes down.

ATA is much, much, much smaller than AWA. AWA has about 140 mainline aircraft while ATA had 65 at y/e 2003, and that includes the remaining 5 or so L1011's. AWA is probably not interested in the 32 737-800's, either. That leaves 15 757-200's and 12 757-300's, and ATA probably needs several of those to maintain its charter business unless AWA buys the whole company.

A hypothetical combined AWA/ATA still couldn't mount much of a hub at MDW; ATA only has 14 gates there, after all. Adding in US Airways would basically mean that you'd be able to offer flights from MDW to the hubs and focus cities and not much else. A combination of the three would probably be about the size of Continental in terms of mainline ASM's. It might not be so bad if WN weren't the #1 or #2 airline in most of your hub cities...

 

[Light Years]

US airways employees had major airline contracts because that's what management said it was. It's not the U employees fault that mgmt was too shortsighted to make it into a GOOD major airline, instead having a painfully short haul, regional airline with big planes with a boxed in network in the costliest area in the nation- with major airline contracts.

U's employees are no more "militant" or notorious than any other airline employees, major airline or LCC. They are simply victims of very bad management, and lack of or too many differing visions.

Any airline would be lucky to have US Airways front line employees. Even at this lowest of low points, they continue to keep customers coming back, and operate a dying airline with a dignity and grace that is no longer seen in this industry, at least in this country. Imagine them with a little bit of motivation and pride...

 

[7.5victim]

I can see your point, but I wouldn't try it if I were HP. In fact, I wouldn't even go ahead trying to merge with TZ. There's far too much LCC capacity on the east coast as it is, the debtload HP would have to assume could be crushing, even with the help of CH11. B6, FL, DH, and WN are much leaner than a HP/TZ/US combination would be. If DL files CH11, they'll be able to shed debt as well, making HP the high cost carrier on the east coast. Not the way to merge, IMO.

The US employees that would come to a merged carrier would be the most senior, and most expensive of all 3 carriers. So the cost advantage HP has today would be lost. Again, a bad way to merge. Can you imagine what would happen if US employees were stapled, like TW employees had happen?

The current crop of LCC's are proving that you don't have to be everything to everyone in order to thrive in this industry. I think HP would be better off letting carriers fail, and picking up assets cheap from the wreckage. They can hire off the street, give their employees the opportunity to transfer to new stations and grow their new culture. HP would be better served by letting the opportunity pass by, rather than grow without being smart about it.

 

[jimntx]

I don't know about other represented groups, but from a flight attendant perspective...

IIRC, AWA, ATA, and U are all AFA. A combination of AWA and ATA would be fairly painless. ATA has approx. 2000 f/as, but the great majority of them have been hired within the past 5 years--just since ATA started scheduled service.

 

[Light Years]

I was thinking of that. The US F/As would blow the other two carriers out of the water- America West has only been around since 1983.

If you do some rough math, if US had only involuntary furloughees, the most junior F/A of 5400 would be 1989 seniority. So lets say 4000 of US's 10000 or so F/As are senior to the most senior America West F/A. HP has 2,300 F/As, the majority of which were hired in the last ten years. ATA only has 1,900 F/As, with a huge percentage of them from the last five years.

An HP-TZ combo probably would be pretty painless, but add in the big blue- whew!. No one wants that seniority list, as great a group of people as it is.

 

[Winglet]

You can bet it wouldn't be a merger, but a partial acquisition with U employees no rights to anything.

 

[SKY HIGH]

You can bet it wouldn't be a merger, but a partial acquisition with U employees no rights to anything.

.........sorry, but the Association of flight attendants have seniority rights in their provisions and they apply during an acquisition/merger. And DATE OF HIRE is the way AFA does things!

 

[Light Years]

AFA is date of hire, no questions asked. I'm not sure if the US F/As have given up thier fragmentation rights or if it's only the pilots giving that away.

 

[BoeingBoy]

FWIW, I've been looking at the numbers in the company's cash balance forecast and the ATSB minimum requirements. With what Davis is quoted as saying in court today about the effect of fuel prices, we won't be able to make the payments on all the planes that are due in Jan-Feb unless either fuel comes down far and fast or the ATSB consents to let us use even more of their cash after Jan 14.

As for fragmentation, my understanding is that only a sale of assets will trigger it anyway. Returning planes to the leasors doesn't trigger fragmentation rights. And that is where AWA could get "our" planes.

Jim

 

[Light Years]

Which is much more likely. Everyone- the public, other airlines, and the airlines own employees want it dead. Then they can pick at the corpse.