If only the Madison had snuck airlines into the constitution, I wouldn't be in this situation. Damn those founding fathers!

 

That was pretty good , I spit my beer out . Thanks for the laughs

 

FC, I have worked under Parker since the day he became a CEO, 19+ years ago. What is no longer speculative is his business strategy - a strategy that flat out does not plan for anything but usual economic events. There is no contingency planning as that would impact debt servicing and/or stock buy backs. Three times now he has been completely unprepared for black swan events, and three times now his airline financials have been exposed as having no margin to withstand anything beyond a normal, macro economic environment. Black swan events are completely off his radar, and that's likely why he would make a perverse statement that AA would never lose money again. In his mind that was true, but with the condition that the macro picture didn't have any black swans in it. This is why most of us pilots froze when we heard his proclamation because we sure as heck can't go to work thinking that nothing out of the ordinary will occur. It can, and over time certainly will in a long enough career.

So, my suspicion is that AA is in a very poor financial situation as that's exactly what the last two black swan events revealed. It explains the disconnect between AA's furloughs and just about everybody else. It explains why Parker could care less about the horrible optics of the two codeshares with airlines that aren't furloughing while AA is - deeply. The problem now is that this swan is much bigger and angrier than the last two.

 

Welcome back. Can't disagree with you.

 

I mean at what point does the BOD vote his ass out??!!! I get that he makes stock holders happy for short periods but come on at what point does his reckless behavior catch up to him? Not planning for a rainy day(year + in this industry) is just foolish. But alas CEOs live in a different world than us...

 

They won't vote him out, because he is executing the exact game plan that the powers above Doug - aka his masters - want employed. It's not about building a better structure for the long term even though that type of long term thinking and investing usually yields much better returns for both employees and investors alike. No, it's all about short term gains and the maximum extraction of revenue from the operation for the benefit of the large institutional investors. There is no long term beyond the current business cycle. They're in it until the cycle starts to top, then they sell out to the pension funds and the retail investors with the help of pumped up stock valuations thanks to buy backs and paid financial pundits. Wash rinse repeat. It's the way of modern Wall Street.

 

Did the company say something would be out today?

 

A lot of rumor there would be phone calls today but nothing yet. And I’m very junior in my domicile so I’m expecting one of the earlier calls.


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Not the company, but I got an email yesterday about an APA domicile meeting that began with "In anticipation of American Airlines announcing furlough numbers this Friday we have scheduled a joint LGA/BOS Town Hall Teleconference for..."

 

It’s one BTL pilot who is driving pretty much all of this speculation. Not sure if he just wants to guess and hope he’s right. I think he likes spreading unsubstantiated rumors about negative life-altering events for fun.