AA "lost money"? Lets see, the have paid off over $10 billion in debt and have $5billion more in cash now than they did in 2003. Sounds to me like they had to take in at least $15billion more than they spent over the last 5 years for an averge of $3 billion a year.
That's because your expertise at corporate finance (or even correctly reading the financial statements) is just about as limited as my expertise at fixing airplanes.
AA hasn't paid off anywhere near $10 billion of debt since 2003. More like $3 billion. Further, AA's improved cash position includes the sale of new debt right after the concessions were signed plus the sale of over a billion dollars worth of new stock once the stock recovered. Add in more than a billion dollars of cash from asset sales (Orbitz, Hotwire, etc) and that's where the improved cash came from.
AMR's unrestricted cash is NOT $5 billion more than in 2003, it's about $3.3 billion more. At 3/31/08, AMR had about $4.5 billion of unrestricted cash, compared to the approx. $1.2 billion in April 2003.
Plus, you appear to have forgotten the difference between positive cash flow and net profits. AA has had positive cash flow from operations since the concessions yet has had only two years of annual net profits (2006 and 2007). The loss in the first quarter wiped out more than the 2006 net profit and the second quarter loss will likely wipe out the 2007 profit.
AA has used some of its cash flow to pay down some debt. But nowhere near $10 billion (who was the genius who made up that number?).
Besides, Ken in San Diego said that AA didn't lose money last quarter (without citing any sources or facts) - and you appear to be arguing with me. Without any facts. Here's the press release:
http://www.shareholder.com/aa/releaseDetai...eleaseID=304956
I realize that posting is a lot easier when all you do is make up numbers, but maybe your lack of success in negotiating with AA all these years has something to do with that laziness. Maybe if you and your colleagues actually came prepared with the facts instead of nonsense like you posted above, you might have had a greater measure of success. A common theme here is that it's always someone else's fault. Perhaps some introspection might be a wise investment.
And you were the Treasurer of your local until you were removed, right?
European Airlines, and airlines that operate in Europe have been paying $4 or more a gallon for years, they are still able to operate and provide their employees with livable wages. Its not unreasonable for us to expect the same.
No, just another falsehood. Fuel for road use has been heavily taxed in Europe forever. Jet Fuel has cost the same in Europe as it has in the USA. Which is about the same as it costs in Asia or Africa or S America. Not quite as funny as when NHBB kept on posting that there were gas stations in Ontario where gas was under a dollar a gallon (he didn't realize that it is priced in litres), but a good one nonetheless.
If jet fuel had cost $4/gal in Europe all these years, do you really believe that AA would have flown all those flights to London and the continent from JFK? If you look at the financials for BA or LH or AF, you'll find that they tend to pay almost exactly the same for jetA as AA. 10 years ago they paid a little more than $0.50, just like AA did and last year they paid over $2.00 just like AA did.
Bob Owens said:
No, as far as going by them. The BLS statistics understate inflation thanks to the "value index" they started using a few years back, non-inclusion of medical costs and they dont include property taxes.
The BLS has political and economic reasons for understating inflation , politically its always better to show low inflation and since SSI is pegged to inflation it saves the government money by claiming that inflation is lower than it is.
No real argument from me. MCI said the CPI numbers I posted didn't include Fuel or Food. He was wrong.
I don't agree that the CPI accurately measures inflation any more than you do. But that's not the point of my response. If somebody's going to correct one of my posts, it would be nice if the corrector wasn't wrong (like MCI was). When I make a posting mistake, I usually own up to it. Fortunately, so does MCI.
