Originally Posted by
daOldMan
Not even close. AA has said that we are at least 40-50 mainline airplanes short of what we could fill right now, and that is just on the mainline side. Most international destinations that AA flies to are full and demand is high. AA really never invested heavily into the asian markets, and that is proving to be a wise decision right now.
Latin and South America are huge right now. Some countries are getting 12+ flights per day and all are filling. Europe looks very good for the summer.
The biggest constraint for this summer will be regional feed. There are plenty of passengers, just not enough regional pilots or mainline aircraft.
In the near term it looks like we will be a steadily shrinking airline for the foreseeable future. The problem AA faces isn't one which will be easily or quickly solved (less than 12 months). There's just too many things involved for a staple or merger. The regional feed will shrink, these passengers will be forced to drive to larger cities for that summer vacation/holiday trip. The only thing we could possibly see would be more retention money but we are already nearing a wages of second or third year mainline FO rates. There is one thing we do know, AA will try the cheapest and easiest thing they can do which is always throw money at the problem to a certain extent, after that it is what it is and this is where we are today. Get your time and move on.