Originally Posted by alfaromeo

I read Boyd's analysis and he makes some glaring errors. First he claims that no other carriers have defined benefit costs. That is wrong, Delta and United both have defined benefit plans even though they are frozen. Frozen does not equal free. Boyd also says that airlines don't need Chapter 11 to drop unprofitable flying. They can drop a route anytime but there are costs left behind even if they drop the route (gates, aircraft, etc.). Bankruptcy allows you to drop out of markets and get rid of those fixed costs.

Boyd's analysis shows AMR spending $700-800 million a year in interest expense which he touts as the largest non-operating cost. Delta has interest expense exceeding $1 billion per year. If American gets rid of 20% of their debt (which is probably unattainable, but I will be generous) they will reduce their interest expense about $140-160 million per year. They are going to lose $1,400 million this year. So get rid of the $150 million in interest and where does the rest of the $1,250 million or so come from? Labor? No way. That hole is too big. Their pension expense is about $500 million per year. Even if they terminate every defined benefit plan they still don't get there.

American's debt is pretty much in line with Delta's on a relative size basis. They will get some temporary relief in Ch 11. They can scrape off all of their teeny (less than 50 seat) rj's. They can get a little in lease costs and accelerating MD-80 retirements. They will get their piece of labor but it won't be $1 billion or more. I still see them having a giant hole in the P+L that can only be filled by more revenue.

What Boyd doesn't address is why Delta gained 11% PRASM and American is about half that at 5.8%. Carl doesn't address it either. Why are we able to pay for our rising fuel costs and American can't. That is not about debt that is about revenue. American has always been an industry leader in RASM performance and now they are close to last place. What has changed in the last five years to make that happen?

So I am not trashing Boyd, but his analysis is superficial and factually incorrect in many facets. How can Delta support a debt load and pension expense that is larger than American's (proportionally the same size) and yet be doing quite well? Is it really debt and pension, or are those just the things you can attack in Chapter 11? Without revenue gains those won't be enough to make American profitable.