CFO Tom Horton

[1 VF-1 2NV]

http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?ne...id=yahoofinance

I wonder what his multimillion $$$ severance was ?

 

[WingNaPrayer]

With all that is claimed he does at AA, one is left to wonder what is left for Arpey to do, or why he is even still on the payroll. If he is the 'face' of American Airlines, then the carrier is already a train wreck!

Whatever SBC offered Horton, Arpey had to better it. My best guess is that win, lose or draw, Horton walks away with mountains of cash, as will many of the top execs.

As this "legacy" carrier continues to spiral haphazardly downward, thousands of minion heads will roll. Employees will find that UCB is not there, or certainly won't cover their own debt load. More personal bankruptcies will follow in an era where a president "helped" the middle class by doubling their credit card payments and putting several smoking guns into the bankruptcy laws to make sure his good buddies, the rich bankers, won't be bankrupted against. More employees will lose their homes in a market where many saw their homes flip in value, negating any chance of an equity loan to carry them through to the next job.

Yet still, the executives at AMR will continue to pull their millions, and with less head count to pay, the possibility of millions more spins in their heads.

For the past few years, flying has been a luxury. It was almost cheaper to fly across the country than take a taxi across town in NYC. Now, when things are far past being dire, the company execs think they can implement changes and fees that will save them the embarrassment of bankruptcy, or perhaps they want it to look like they went down swinging. They caught on too late. Because flying was a luxury, ticket prices stayed low because the carriers did not want any customers fleeing to other airlines, or doing what they did before - stay home. AA, like other carriers, flew the daylights out of their aircraft all for pennies, flying barefoot Earl and Imogene from trailer park A to trailer park B for the cost of a dog and a beer at Wrigley Field.

The ugliness of it all is that the people who carried American Airlines through the bad times - and the good upon their shoulders, will be the ones who are thanked least. They will be pink-slipped with the compassion of Arpey clipping a fingernail, and there won't be a genuine care about him. They will make speeches and send memos to employees about how bad they feel, but that they must do what they must to save this iconic blunder of an airline. Employees will be gone, their salaries and benefits added back into the plus column, backs will be slapped over cocktails at the club while these kings of tomfoolery congratulate themselves for doing what, no one knows.

Horton heard the who alright, and it had lots and lots of zeros! With all the work and responsibility doled out and trickled down to the wage and salary set, Captain Dunsel is at the helm at AMR, paying very little attention and letting nothing interfere with daydreams of the next trip to the condo in Mexico. Eventually, the day will come when he just doesn't come back - and no one will notice, including him.

/rant

 

[FWAAA]

Whatever SBC offered Horton, Arpey had to better it. My best guess is that win, lose or draw, Horton walks away with mountains of cash, as will many of the top execs.

No, Horton left AT&T after the merger with SBC and he left with a big severance package. Since there would have been two CFOs (Horton, who had been AT&T's plus whomever held that job at SBC), Horton retired. Arpey didn't have to "better" anything, since Horton is certainly rich enough so that he doesn't have to work. Horton's AMR compensation is detailed in the proxy statement at page 30 (page 33 of the .pdf document):

http://www.aa.com/content/images/amrcorp/p...xyStatement.pdf

I'm guessing he made more money at AT&T but I'm too lazy to look it up.

 

[N288AA]

No, Horton left SBC after the merger with AT&T and he left with a big severance package. Since there would have been two CFOs (Horton, who had been SBC's plus whomever held that job at AT&T), Horton retired from SBC. Arpey didn't have to "better" anything, since Horton is certainly rich enough so that he doesn't have to work. Horton's AMR compensation is detailed in the proxy statement at page 30 (page 33 of the .pdf document):

http://www.aa.com/content/images/amrcorp/p...xyStatement.pdf

I'm guessing he made more money at SBC but I'm too lazy to look it up.

He did leave after the merger but he was with the original AT&T not SBC.

 

[FWAAA]

He did leave after the merger but he was with the original AT&T not SBC.

My mistake - I've corrected my post. Thanks.

 

[Mrs. McFly]

For the past few years, flying has been a luxury. It was almost cheaper to fly across the country than take a taxi across town in NYC. Now, when things are far past being dire, the company execs think they can implement changes and fees that will save them the embarrassment of bankruptcy, or perhaps they want it to look like they went down swinging. They caught on too late. Because flying was a luxury, ticket prices stayed low because the carriers did not want any customers fleeing to other airlines, or doing what they did before - stay home. AA, like other carriers, flew the daylights out of their aircraft all for pennies, flying barefoot Earl and Imogene from trailer park A to trailer park B for the cost of a dog and a beer at Wrigley Field.

I think for the past several years people have viewed flying as an entitlement rather than a luxury. Passengers feel that they deserve low fares and as many travel time options as possible and nothing less. With this new era of air travel, however, flying will become a luxury once again and you will have people complaining that it is discriminating against those who can't afford the airfare. What these "entitled" passengers must realize is employees cannot keep bearing the brunt of bargain basement fares. You can't run a business and survive that way, and time will tell if Horton has come to this realization as well as the others.

 

[WingNaPrayer]

Lets just spin it this way . . . he didn't come back to AMR because they offered him crappy salary and benefits. When one doesn't have to work, the offer has to be quite enticing. I may have read it wrong but it looked like, from the article, SBC offered the job to Horton? I was under the impression he had options, more than one career path to choose from.

Anyway, AMR has him now - they're stuck with him. Being the 'King of Pink Slips' that he was for AT&T, I'm sure he is going to have lots of fun thinning the AA herd this summer! The only thing he'll have to decide on is how nice he wants to be while he's doing it. I expect Arpey will just sit back and let Horton sweep AA's back porch without question.

FWAAA - thanks for the explanation it made a little bit better sense. I still think though, there had to be some type of enticement to get him back to AMR as I'm sure he didn't return because he loves the place.

 

[whatkindoffreshhell]

What these "entitled" passengers must realize is employees cannot keep bearing the brunt of bargain basement fares. You can't run a business and survive that way, and time will tell if Horton has come to this realization as well as the others.

Sort of like all these wannabees who leased huge SUVS and now are crying about $4 gallon gasoline?

Maybe took a home equity to lease that SUV?