Originally Posted by
NEDude
Crandall has been stating this for a few years now. Wish I could remember where, but he had an op-ed piece in one of the major newspapers (I am thinking WSJ) about three or four years back stating almost the same thing. So this is not a sudden change for him.
One thing to remember as well that when Bob Crandall was running American, he had to do what was best for the shareholders - ie. minimize costs/maximize profits. So while the "B" scale was terrible, I do not view Bob Crandall as evil in the same way as Lorenzo was. Someone pointed it out earlier, Crandall actually ran a successful airline, Lorenzo killed Eastern and tried to kill Continental.
Hopefully we will see some good things come from this.
Crandalls strong point is he actually wanted to make money running an airline. He was no angel then and he isn't now but he wanted to run a business and not gut it. Many companies, not just airlines, have had the gut and run management a return to management that wants to and has the ability to make a profit running a successful company is past due.