Originally Posted by
AllenAllert
As a retired line person sitting in your rocking chair you come to that conclusion. Just for the record, United customer service went down the tube on day one of the merger. You've been known to bash United - would that be from not getting hired at UAL, AA or DAL in the late 70's - sour grapes. Must of been tough having to settle.
His point about having a superior network that yields marginal results is valid. Even going back to the late 90s, was UAL more profitable than DAL or AAL? We should have been, given the ESOP labor cost advantage back then, but we only kept pace at best. It seems as though the size and complexity of the network may cost too much for the revenue we squeeze out of it. As a result, our financial metrics tend to lag the competition. If Oscar's team doesn't find a way to close the margin gap with the competition, I wouldn't be surprised to see the network downsized and simplified eventually. The call to do just that has come from Wall Street before.