Originally Posted by
MayDaze
I was fortunate enough to meet and talk to an American Employee that helped run the AAadvantage Program (American's frequent flyer program). He was saying that United and Delta were stealing all their business travelers and the only base they could strongly hold onto is MIA. He went on to say that only a few years ago New York used to be a cash cow for them and close behind was ORD and LAX.
His theory now is that they'll concentrate less on the business traveler and more on the casual flyer. "With our Oneworld advantage, we could cut our ties with JetBlue and compete directly with them, Spirit and Southwest."
It's pretty easy to steal those premium passengers when your product (and network) are inferior. It's not that AA got bad, it's they did nothing while the competition upgraded both those aspects of their business. That was what employees at AA entrusted managment with, with 1.8 billion in givebacks in 2003, i.e........that it would be put to use to MAKE AA competitive. Instead they got gyped and not only them, but the shareholders, customers and vendors as well. To rub salt in the wounds, the only success story here during the last decade has been the fabulous executive wealth generation program which rocketed skyward to the heavens like a scud missle.
Supposedly, it was the usual senior executive "us and them" philosophy that those compensation levels were necessary to discourage the defection of the "top talent".
