Uh, partially true at best. With the PanAm purchase, we purchased some of PanAm's assets, primarily Europe and the NY Shuttle. Like AA with TWA, we purchased some of an old airline, with old and crappy assets (JFK terminal for example), old employees, a system of almost mind-boggling fraud, waste and outright thievery with their physical assets, and lots of debt. We dumped the old assets, kept the debt, kept the old employees, then furloughed off the bottom.

Essentially we paid $2 billion for the Shuttle, which we have then changed and emasculated over and over. I think in the aggregate is has been a net positive--the European and African flying has been great--but not a great net positive--unlike the DAL/NWA merger, which truly was a great historic thing. Both the old assets as well as DAL mismanagement back in the day are the reasons why.

Had RA (Richard Anderson, not Ron Allen, our not-very-good CEO back then) or someone like him been at the helm in the early 90s the PanAm deal would not have gone down as it did. He either would have declined or gotten a much better deal (it is widely rumored that Bob Crandall at AA kept bidding up the price, knowing our own less than stellar CEO would keep outbidding him--which he did). And I know that our current CEO would have handled the logistics and operational issues post-merger much better than we did.

But like someone just posted, that was a long time ago and water under the bridge. I do know that the former PanAm FAs are some of the best you will ever fly with, even though they haven't worn that uniform since the early 90s!