1. It doesn't matter who is the president of the APA. This is not a personality issue, it's a money issue. While a warm fuzzy APA leadership might look better to the outside, AA leadership will see that nothing short of weakness. Is anybody here actually under the belief that AA would stop stalling and actually start talking about key issues in the contract??? This is a standard negotiating ploy. Everyday AA can keep going under the current concessionary contract is thousands of bucks for the PUP, or whatever they're calling it now. There is zero incentive for AA to do ANYTHING except stall till the 11th hour and how "friendly" the APA has zero to do with it, unless, of course, if the APA were to accept an even deeper concessionary contract and the massive layoffs that would result. As far as the financial data provided under non-disclosure agreements, I wouldn't necessarily believe it anyway. It will only be parsed, twisted, tortured, and edited regardless.
2. Holly assumes that Bates is going to be a push-over like Moak at Delta who has given the store away in scope. I doubt Bates has any significant differences with Capt Hill's agenda and the current APA contract openers. Style, but not substance. Holly's wishful thinking is reading WAY too much into the change of leadership at the APA.
3. If AA wants to kill scope and massively outsource AA jobs to cheap commuters, then they're going to have to do it through bankruptcy, like Delta did. The APA got snookered in 2003 by AA. I don't think that's going to happen again. No bankruptcy class contract without the bankruptcy. Maybe a BK will result in a few thousand instant retirees, like Delta. The only problem is AA wants the BK contract without the hit to senior executive compensation or the massive disruption of mass retirements. They're not going to get it.
