Originally Posted by
FrankCobretti
Steven Pearlstein: Two can play the airline bankruptcy game - The Washington Post
"For years now, Corporate America has viewed the bankruptcy court as a blunt instrument by which failed executives and directors can shift the burden of their mistakes onto shareholders, employees and suppliers. The auto industry bailout orchestrated by the Obama administration posed the first challenge to that assumption. Now the unions at American airlines have taken another step in curbing this flagrant corporate abuse and restoring the rule of law."
Here is another paragraph I thought was great:
In short, while the turnaround plan offered by American’s management relies solely on $800 million in annual cost cutting, mostly in the form of labor savings, the merger with US Airways is premised on $1.2 billion in synergies that result in large part from increased revenue as the merged carrier achieves the scale and scope necessary to compete with industry leaders United and Delta.
The more I read about the UsAir takeover of AA, the more I think it will happen. Overnight, Dougie will have PHL/LGA-ish, DCA, MIA, CLT, DFW, ORD, PHX, LAX and whatever else.
Sure they'll slim down in a couple of places, but not in places where DAL would hope to take an advantage. I can't see AMR being split up at this point. So I don't see us gaining MIA because it's way too valuable or ramping up DFW especially with the Wright Amendment fading away in 2014. And on the west coast, I think they could redeploy PHX to cover Alaska flying.
And I do see things between a Dougie Parker AMR and DAL getting very testy.
So if that all proves to be the case, AMR+USAir, reduction in AMR's use of Alaska, a swerving Dougie Parker led AMR and almost complete ownership of the east coast, then what's our hurry again with this TA?
Time is never on our side thanks to the RLA, so why give it up when it is?