As a UAL pilot I’ll say two things:
1. 5 years in at AA and thinking of jumping ship? Nuts. I love it here but wouldn’t give up 5 years of AA seniority to come here. No way. JetBlue, Frontier, Spirit, Allegiant; even SWA maybe but not AA. I think within 5 years AA will be a completely different place and my bet is you all will be happy. Airlines cycle at the top. Delta has had their day in the sun but I’m seeing signs of things over there getting all “Gummed”up next year. UAL is doing the right things and absent a recession, I see our airline rising but nothing will last forever and AA could very well climb above us in 5 years. Look at where we were 5 years ago!
2. Kirby is a smart network guy and that is what UAL needed in a terribly bad way. We already had hubs in great markets and wide bodies with tons of wide body orders. We just needed a mind that could connect the dots and put them to use where they maximized profit. Some of us were surprised to see 777s going to Florida and all over our domestic network this year but it has worked. He drove the decisions to add used narrow body aircraft and has put us in a position to take a ton of MAXs over the next 5 years with 321s coming as well. I’ll give him some slack for a while.
Last edited by Vernon Demerest; 12-13-2019 at 10:06 AM.