Kev3188 said:
The correct answer to your rhetorical question is not "maybe," but rather, "not while the people in CCY (or any other boardroom) continue to profit while we all suffer. Period.
Did I miss something?
Last time I checked US was losing money.
RSA invested roughly $240,000,000 in US Airways last year and received 38% of US Airways stock. If RSA sold out today, their 38% stake is worth $104 million. That is a loss of ($136 million). No profit there.
If you go to Yahoo finance this very second you will see that the total market cap of US Airways is $273,970,000. That's right, the whole thing is only worth $274 million dollars. I say ONLY, because Southwest has a market cap of $11 BILLION. Based on these facts, if Wallstreet were a horse track, the odds of Southwest winning vs. US Airways would be 36 to 1.
US Airways stock has ranged from $4 to $32 in the last year. Today it is trading at $5.12 per share, near the year low. So there's probably more losers than winners. So I don't know who is profiting, but there is not many if any. But the people that will make an even bigger profit if US fails is Southwest investors. And based on the Southwest stock price, that is EXACTLY what their investors are counting on.
But the biggest upset in airline investing history is in the making.
Consider this: Southwest is worth $11 billion today. I don't know how all the costs get out of US, but the details that have been revealed so far state the target is to be competitive with Southwest from a cost standpoint. So if costs are the same and fares are competitive, Southwest is in real trouble. Who is going to drive to PVD when they can fly out of BOS for the same price? Customers won't drive from Washington to Baltimore anymore, they will fly from Reagan.
So who has the most to lose? US employees? US investors? WN employees? WN investors?
WN employees are sympathetic, but they REALLY don't want US to be competitive on costs because US could be the worst thing that ever happened to them if they are lean, mean and have competitive costs.