Unsubstantiated rumor--merger talks in Dallas

[Pacemaker]

I'm sure aafsc will be flamed to ashes but basically it's an honest assessment of how the rest of the industry, rightly, views US Airways. And why are these threads always popping up here; never a word on the AA board, or the UA board? Could it be we're grasping at straws?

Be careful what you wish for. Anything that conceivably would occur between these two carriers would not be pretty for US or their employees.

 

[Dog Wonder]

Be careful what you wish for. Anything that conceivably would occur between these two carriers would not be pretty for US or their employees.

What is going on now is not pretty for US, or their employees.

 

[Henderfuzz]

Oh ok now I get it. Thats why they keep cutting our workforce here at DFW without reducing our flights.
Because soon were going to have 1000s of employees.
Wow I would have never guessed.

 

[BoeingBoy]

I know that these boards are not representative of AA employees, but I think there is a good possibility that the nAAtives would 'burn the place down' if they did not get something close to a staple job.

I completely agree. Guess I didn't stress the AA labor angle enough by just saying that the last thing AA needed was another reason for their workers to be unhappy.

One way to make the AA - US deal plus the subsequent resulting entity ultra competitive would be for both companies to go through the US bankruptcy court system. This would get rid of the 'crappy' contracts/obligations for both companies. However, can you just feel & see the love from labor as more concessions are extracted?

True, although as much as some of the AA employees gripe about what they gave up you can't get much crappier than the East and West contracts. Just getting the AA contracts down to the level of the US contracts would be a huge cost savings. A US bankruptcy would allow getting out of airplane/facility obligations, however.

I'm not sold on the "AA won't like being a distant 3rd" if UA/CO merge. If both the DL/NW and potential UA/CO merger prove successful (the whole is greater than the sum of the parts), AA might see an advantage to merging, but unless they kept all of US they would still be 3rd by many measures. Personally, I think AA would rather be profitable than big, but if being bigger bettered the chance of being profitable AA might start looking around for the best fit - which might or might not be US.

Jim

 

[FrugalFlyerv2.0]

CLT is positioned to compete with DL in ATL, and due to its cost per pax, would be very cheap to maintain or grow.
Lots of business in the Carolinas need transportation, and closing CLT would not be a good strategic move.

CLT is very valuable to US, and could be also valuable to AA. However I can't imagine AA keeping 400+ daily flights in CLT. Likely most of the Carribean central/south America flights would be shifted to MIA (AA has invested heavily there) and probably no CLT-EU flights either (save for LHR since AA-BA-IB is now immunized, but even this could cannabilize the RDU-LRH flight).

Paring down ops in PHL would be a good move as on most days US stuffs about 50 pounds into that 10 pound bag and expects it to work.

Agreed about US over-stuffing PHL, but I think AA could still keep a fairly large ops going there, the metro area has a large population to draw from. Probably lots of the trans-Atlantic flights would be cut/shifted to JFK, and express ops at PHL greatly reduced. However, the result (de-congestion) might turn PHL into a decently functional northeast hub? Coupled with the DCA assets, the resulting network would be formidable (unless DOT/DOJ would require divesting large chunks).

Its still a good fit, and staple jobs are not legal in this country anymore.
Cheers.

The nAAtives can present a good case for a staple job or a seniority list very close to a staple job to an arbitrator (if it goes that far). Any other outcome & they're quite likely to burn the place down ... ... ....

 

[BoeingBoy]

The nAAtives can present a good case for a staple job or a seniority list very close to a staple job to an arbitrator (if it goes that far). Any other outcome & they're quite likely to burn the place down ... ... ....

Talking only about the pilots, they might not have too much heartburn about an integration similar to the US/HP arbitration result. Just off the top of my head without benefit of ever having looked at an AA seniority list, the top 1/3 to 1/2 the combined list would be mostly AA pilots because of the disparity in wide body aircraft (a few hundred US pilots mixed in with a few thousand AA pilots). The rest of the active pilot portion would be more evenly split. The furloughed pilots from both sides (assuming that there were furloughed pilots at the time) would be at the bottom.

Personally, "gold standard" or not, I just can't see a DOH integration except in cases where it would look very similar to a relative position by equipment list.

However, I'll say again that I don't see AA merging with US unless AA sees the advantages outweighing the disadvantages. That would mean US or both in bankruptcy.

Jim

 

[cynic]

Agreed about US over-stuffing PHL, .....

US has cut flights in/out of PHL over the last several years. Any current "over-stuffing" is coming from the likes of Southwest.

 

[wings396]

First of all PHL draws off a different traffic base than JFK, so both can survive. How many people do you see driving between NYC and PHL to take a flight? Those in PHL would most likely take a southbound flight, and make a connection to their destination if US wasn't there. Those in the NYC area have a multitude of airlines and flights to choose from without even considering PHL.
As far as AA not having an interest in a southeastern hub, what was RDU? When I made my original post on this thread, I knew that the folks in the bleachers would start to chime in about how worthless US is, and how AA would cut and chop US up an eliminate this and that. Ever stop to think that is why AA is in the shape it is in today? They bought up other airlines, only to chew up and spit out what they paid millions for instead of finding a way to capitalize on it. Say what you want about US, but AA is not all that much better off. Most of the workforce is disgruntled as well, you are losing money by the truckload, and the FAA is up you ### about Mtc. issues and pilot training as well. Take a good look in the mirror before being critical of any other airline out there. Your business model isn't working either, so having deeper pockets is just prolonging the inevitable.

 

[BoeingBoy]

First of all PHL draws off a different traffic base than JFK, so both can survive.

If you're talking about Philly itself, you're right to a degree although singling out JFK as the competition relegates to argument to long-haul and mostly TA traffic only. However, for it's population the Philly MSA generates significantly less O&D traffic than anywhere else due to it's location between Washington/BWI and EWR/NYC. So either a significanty smaller percentage of people in the Philly MSA fly than anywhere else or PHL loses O&D traffic to it's neighbors.

As far as AA not having an interest in a southeastern hub, what was RDU?

What RDU was isn't important. What is RDU now? You think that AA, if they were so set on having a SE hub couldn't have kept RDU or built it back up in all those years? The terminal built for AA's RDU hub has been sitting there all this time - why didn't AA use it to it's full capacity? Half of it has been walled off for quite a few years. Why? Sure, AA might be interested in a turnkey SE hub, but given the fleet differences, employee strife, etc is CLT really a turnkey solution?

but AA is not all that much better off

I'll agree with that. With all their current problems why would they want to add more by acquiring US?

Sounds like some on the pilot thread - AA is salivating to buy the financial powerhouse (and twice bankrupt) East and those pesky Westies go away - hopefully to someone like Republic or Mesa where they'll get the punishment they deserve for dragging all powerful East down.

Jim

 

[FrugalFlyerv2.0]

Even if one assume that if AA and US top brass are talking/meeting, does it have to be merger talks?

Would it not be more advantageous for AA, and maybe US to follow the "LH Strategy"? What I mean is this:

1) convince US to dump * and join 1-world. The selling point could be that US is better off being the #2 North American airline in 1-world vs. the #4 in * (UA, AC, CO, US)?
2) then have AA buy a stake in US

This way, US is a member of 1-world but heavily integrated into the alliance - sort of like Swiss, Austrian, bmi, SN, etc. are partially owned by LH and a part of * alliance. Also, AA may not be the only entity stepping up with $$$ for US - the deal could include BA, TPG, Onex, other suckers, ..... er investors, etc.

In this scenario AA (via extensive US code-sharing) gets access to the east/northeast market - obviously an advantage for AA. The question remains is there an advantage for US to switching alliances + becoming deeply integrated into 1-world vs. its current red-headed step-child status in *.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Now that makes sense - more sense than a merger any day. There's one fly in the ointment that I can see - a lot of US' frequent flyers like the *A better than OW or ST so US could lose a chunk of those, which would hurt. Would OW offer enough gains to offset that? Don't know.

Jim

 

[autofixer]

Kirby was just on CNBC ( 3/4/2010 at 10:55 est): Merge, merge, merge, merge........

 

[USCREW]

Kirby was just on CNBC ( 3/4/2010 at 10:55 est): Merge, merge, merge, merge........

What did he say?

Link?

 

[BoeingBoy]

Try this:

Link

Jim

 

[cubfan]

What did he say?

Link?

2010 looks ok they hope but nothing new