[blockquote]----------------On 2/5/2003 5:07:43 PM bagsmasher wrote: TWA mechanics were making somewhere around $21 per hour before AA. Now they are making somewhere around $35 per hour. That is a huge raise. They could take the paycut, and STILL come out ahead of where they were with TWA. To make things fair, I suggest all TWAer's go back to their former payrate, THEN take the paycut.
They way I look at it is that Carty spent nearly $1 billion to buy TWA, took on $3 billion in debt and leases, and it's now a $1 billion a year drag on AMR. This Mr. Carty did to put a feather in his cap so that he could say he is CEO of "the world's largest airline." He stabbed his own employees in the back (especially the TWU) in doing so, and now he wants us to finance his mistake. I don't think so. ----------------[/blockquote]
As I recall the TWA/AA merger would not have cost that much, as AA's credit rating was immediately used to drive down the leasing and fuel costs for the TWA portion of the operation, and Karabu was also gone. 9/11 changed the picture dramatically for everyone. The investement risk was how much additional revenue those additional routes would raise, that is what business is all about, you invest and to a certain extend speculate on the market.
SWA is a problem as the same people who fly it will demand much better levels of service from their departure point to their international or wherever destination, as they ever demand from SWA on their point to point flights. Can AA's feeder dervice survive on only the traffic destined for points beyond DFW or ORD?
How many international passengers fly to Love field via SWA and then transfer to AA at DFW, instead of another carrier, maybe a foreign one?
JetBlue is still too new, under normal conditions they could be waited out for some time. How long will employees work for the enthusiasm of it, and what happens when the heavy checks come due? Have they been setting up sinking funds, what is their business plan? Cascade in BC? Make money of US passengers and then take the work somewhere else? Kind of how WalMart and the PC industry does it. Anyone see any made in US PC components lately? And the High tech was supposed to be the wave of the future. If the US companies would pay what is a middle class wage in the overseas plants it would be worth immigrating to Mexico.
Wish we still had George Meany, he had the vision to fight the Soviets and he may just had the vision to fight this blight, of downsizing world wide living and working standards.
They way I look at it is that Carty spent nearly $1 billion to buy TWA, took on $3 billion in debt and leases, and it's now a $1 billion a year drag on AMR. This Mr. Carty did to put a feather in his cap so that he could say he is CEO of "the world's largest airline." He stabbed his own employees in the back (especially the TWU) in doing so, and now he wants us to finance his mistake. I don't think so. ----------------[/blockquote]
As I recall the TWA/AA merger would not have cost that much, as AA's credit rating was immediately used to drive down the leasing and fuel costs for the TWA portion of the operation, and Karabu was also gone. 9/11 changed the picture dramatically for everyone. The investement risk was how much additional revenue those additional routes would raise, that is what business is all about, you invest and to a certain extend speculate on the market.
SWA is a problem as the same people who fly it will demand much better levels of service from their departure point to their international or wherever destination, as they ever demand from SWA on their point to point flights. Can AA's feeder dervice survive on only the traffic destined for points beyond DFW or ORD?
How many international passengers fly to Love field via SWA and then transfer to AA at DFW, instead of another carrier, maybe a foreign one?
JetBlue is still too new, under normal conditions they could be waited out for some time. How long will employees work for the enthusiasm of it, and what happens when the heavy checks come due? Have they been setting up sinking funds, what is their business plan? Cascade in BC? Make money of US passengers and then take the work somewhere else? Kind of how WalMart and the PC industry does it. Anyone see any made in US PC components lately? And the High tech was supposed to be the wave of the future. If the US companies would pay what is a middle class wage in the overseas plants it would be worth immigrating to Mexico.
Wish we still had George Meany, he had the vision to fight the Soviets and he may just had the vision to fight this blight, of downsizing world wide living and working standards.
