Originally Posted by cactusmike

The low cost factor definitely played a major role in being profitable. But that was more a factor at awa than lcc. I do not have the CASM comparisons handy and I'm too lazy right now to look them up but the post merger CASM doubled over the AWA costs to around 14.5 cents/ seat mile. I don't think that is a lot cheaper than everyone else. I am prepared to be corrected, though.

Being able to mesh the two airlines will be key. If past practice is followed look for most American policies and procedures to stay and for LCC people to have to adapt to them. Dug went out of his way to placate the East employees. It will be interesting to see if that is repeated.

One thing that I hope we will see is adoption of the AA 9 month AQP cycle versus our 12 month cycle. 12 months is too long between sim sessions. Another big decision will be checklist philosophy. We use flows and minimal checklists while I believe you guys still use read and do. At AWA we wee even more heavily set on flows with checklist just covering the stuff that will kill you. For instance, the 757 taxi check list used to be one item - Flaps: ___ set. Everything else had been done on the afterstart flow. The airbus is very well suited to flows, with the lights out philosophy. If its not lit, you're good to go.