State of the Airline update (post merger)

Well, good and not so good news. Usually I start with bad news, but I'll do the good, since people might not read all this.

I wasn't at the meeting... but this is a summery of what was said. Second hand info I know... but my company source was there... and is spot on 99.8%. This isn't his theory.... just cliff notes of what was discussed.

First, Winkley WILL NOT METER FLOW THROUGH OR 824 transfers to AA. There are two possible restrictions to this, which will be stated later. Rumors of 75-100 flow throughs per month once AA training steps up. AA (Winkley) suggested all new people will come from Eagle if possible (more on this later).

The positive from this, people moving on, and HUGE amounts of upgrades. Our training department will be ready (time will tell). So, our hiring needs to be huge. upgrade times will drop significantly. One can only guess what a junior captain will be in 18-24 months from now. Perhaps very junior.

Now, the not so good, but not so bad news. Winkley and Garton are still trying to get more positive news, but for now this is it. No word, or suggestion of new planes. For now, management wants as many as possible to flow. Thats about the only good news. We NEED new hires, hundreds of them. Why??? Winkley will not restict the flow or 824, as long as we have new people coming in to replace us. So possible new hires... get here... things will move fast it sounds. So, upgrade times should drop (new people read that again). The only other option to not restrict the flow/824 is to shrink the airline. This may or may not happen... More on that next.

The Bad News: USAir Management sucks. Most of the AMR management will be gone. Garton conceeds he will most likely lose his job as well. Parker wants ONE "president" to oversee all wholy owned regional airlines.

USAir Management will pretty much destroy the AA product. US management is well into the restructuring of AA, and they have told AMR managers, the whole picture is to costly. US wants a LCC. Thats Low Cost Carrier. Parker has already stated the new 777 will be reconfigured. They are "too nice" and will cost too much to operate. He has stated our fuel tracking/fuel scoring will most likely be implented and monitored. He couldn't beileve we have two FMS/FMC's in our planes... again too much cost. The general idea I got, was we (AA/EGL) will be trimmed to nothing. So sadly, instead of making AA a premier product, he wants to trim it to garbage.


So to sum up, we need to HIRE TONS or shrink, and we will get unrestricted flow... even maybe a 100 a month if our staffing or shrinkage supports it. And the "new" American, (LCC/penny pincher) maybe a garbage airline... I sure hope not... but look at the current US... pretty crappy airline.

Well, that rumor section 300+ CA upgrades maybe true....