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On 3/16/2003 9:58:49 AM WingNaPrayer wrote:
Can you imagine the irony at those family reunions? Two brothers both bankrupting airlines, and walking away fat and happy.
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Blaming Doug Carty for Canadian's demise is a little bit of a stretch - he was only the CFO (for the last few dying years if I'm not mistaken). Besides, American is not in bankruptcy (yet?}.
If you compare the shape that CP was in for the last 10 or so years prior to its demise and AA today, well AA looks golden.
CP failed due to many reasons:
1) acquisition of Wardair. Sure Wardair was a pain in the neck, but it would have eventually collapsed. Instead CP bought it and its problems.
2) Government interference. In helping to maintain ACs dominant domestic position pre Canadian airline deregulation as well as prolonging CPs existance [tax breaks, aircraft purchases, etc.)
3) old inefficient fleet (DC-10s, 737-200s, F28 compared to ACs A320s and CRJs)
4) arcane workrules
5) Westjet - or a lack of a response to Westjet. It's been written that one reason why Westjet is so successful today is because CP was too complacent to respond to it when it began operations in western Canada.
6) alliance with AA. Contrary to popular belief, AA actually made money from CP courtesy of Sabre, and AA's USA hub/route structure was not that best for CPs USA strategy/expansion.
7) Air Canada. A formidable competitor, ACs goal was was always to inflict as much financial damage to CP as possible. Even though AC lost money in the process it had deeper pockets and knew it could outlast CP.
8) Failure to take advantage of Canada-USA Open Skies. See ACs expansion and presence in the USA (also see point #6 above).
9) Too much dependence on Asia routes. Thanks to government intervention, the Pacific route authorities were mostly CPs. But its domestic network was weak (too much in western canada), flawed US strategy, insuficient coverage to Europe (except for LHR).
Doug Carty is far on the list of the reasons for CPs demise. BTW, CPAir was profitable when Don Carty was there (i.e. pre Pacific Western's acquition of CPAir).
