Well it’s the same thing, for AA to compete in the North East they have to split operations between PHL and NYC, and United and Delta do not have to. That is an efficiency loss for AA. USAir competed internationally with the legacy’s out of PHL when they had no access to NYC, and it does not reflect on “poor strategy” for AA mgmt.

The OP questions related to controllable strategy from mgmt as a perceived defining difference in profitability which is mostly not true and mostly reflective of infrastructure efficiency.

AA and Delta can each make 50B in revenue and AA profit way less because their infrastructure is way less efficient, and they don’t have a way to consolidate infrastructure without sacrificing revenue. Some employees somehow just think they are contempt with lower profit margins when they do not consider infrastructure efficiency. AA would profit way more if they could make 50B and close two hubs at the same time. The Delta NW merger was simply much more efficient.