A one-time baggage handler turned senior manager, Hotchkiss said America West Airlines is a survivor.
"There’s a lot of us that are still around after 22 years," he says. "We carried this airline as far as we could, doing everything we can to keep it alive as possible."
But higher fuel prices and industry overcapacity have led to a merger with US Airways that begins Tuesday.
"If we did not think about merging ... who knows where we’d be six months from now," Hotchkiss said.
