Am I only one that's completely and utterly repulsed by a US/AA merger??
No, nor as much as we are at the thought. This may come as a surprise, but just what makes you think that you are a prize on the merger market? PHL operations? Please. If we wanted more PHL business, we would increase flying there. It's not exactly slot restricted like LGA or DCA.
PHX? Gee, just what we want. Another airport where SWA is the major carrier. Ditto, LAS. By the way, I was commuting on SW last night. One of the f/as told me that they are enlarging the LAS f/a base from 500 to 1200 f/as even as we speak. Do you think that means they are going to increase flying to/from LAS? I think it does.
Your International operations? Granted you fly to more
cities in Europe than we do. But, that's not how business is measured. Look at the number of revenue seat miles to Europe. Look at how many passengers are carried annually.
Your a/c? Well, let's look at what it would cost to convert your closetless 8FC seat 75s to AA standard of 22FC seats
with closets. And, all the a/c held together with duct tape--as employees and customers are constantly posting on here.
Your chef? I don't think we would serve the tuna burrito even in coach on an LAS flight.
Your employees? Well, let's see. Two of everything in the unionized workforce that haven't managed to agree on anything in over two years of drawing paychecks from the same company. Especially your pilots who demanded binding arbitration, got it, then are demanding a different solution because they didn't get the results they thought they would. Binding arbitration is just that...binding.
Quite frankly, I'm afraid that AA management will succumb to the thought that they have to merge with something because everyone else is doing it (one of the main reasons we bought TWA) and Greyhound isn't available.