"my family will be fine."

nope

 

AA has almost 300 older aircraft that they could shed in a bankruptcy and just walk away from, leaving the lessors not having to worry about values of the rest with an aviation world in shambles (all approx):

• 60 "Block I" 737 (20 yrs)
• 100 A319 (20 yrs)
• 50 A320 (20 yrs)
• 30 A321 (20 yrs)
• 50 777 (20 yrs)
• 777-300's are practically new but if you don't need them you could reject them as well (20 total I think)

That would knock us down to roughy 500 aircraft or about 55% of our pre-covid size, and streamline the fleet further making AA a 737/A320 operator plus the 787 for big city international markets.

We'd retain the newer ones with value to the lessors and seeing as how we are flying 47% of our pre-covid pax, the ratio isn't far from off.

It would suck for most of us because we'd all be on the street and quite frankly better off going elsewhere but I don't think AA will liquidate completely.

Contracts would also be amended, you'd see FA and pilot pay cut by 30% +/-, ground crew as well. The company would basically become a post-AWA airline again. Kinda crappy service, junky airline, but cheap and profitable, assuming some semblance of demand is back in summer 2021. Hubs would be CLT, DCA, DFW, PHL, PHX, and (maybe) MIA.

Delta, United, and SWA would buy up our gates and slots at the other ones. But their costs would all be higher than AA's if they don't file.

As far as regionals go, AA could spin them off with a guaranteed contract to extract value from them (Skywest would buy). AA did just get an STC to install HEPA filters on the Piedmont and Envoy ERJs so it does appear like those are in for the long haul, so maybe the plan is to keep them in house.

They must know something we don't though because they haven't parked the 777-200's which I thought would be toast by now. Either they are banking on a yuge cargo contract for vaccines or legitimately think there will be demand for that sized aircraft in the near future. Although we've seen how they were way off on demand lately.

 

American Airlines is too big to fail. An AA liquidation would blow holes into the economies of all of its hub cities and eliminate 117,000+ jobs. It would destabilize Boeing. Congress will not let this happen. American will be saved like the auto industry and the banks during the financial crisis of 2008.

Once again we see privatized profit and public risk. Doug played fast and loose with AA's balance sheet because he's always known that he has the United State's tax payers as his safety net. A pandemic is not a black swan event. It's a white swan, pandemics are regular and expected. We just hadn't seen one in awhile. A competent CEO of a huge airline would have considered the risk exposure to a pandemic. Instead, Doug ran wild with debt and stock buybacks. He wasn't concerned with steering the company towards a stable future, he was making short term decisions for short term stock gains. Why would he care about anything else when he knows he has a giant, government safety net?

When the final, big, bailout comes, voters are going to be ****ed and congress will be forced to look tough. I'm not talking Cares 2.0, I'm talking ten months from now when all the CEOs are called to DC to grovel in front of congress. It'll be twice as ugly as the auto industry bailout. Do you think these pilot $400k a year total compensation packages will play well in the media? Do you think the voters of America will give us their money with no strings attached?

The industry will be totally changed. There will be unexpected winners and losers. Who knows what form of regulation will be attached to this bailout package.

And those of you who think the Covid will go away overnight, you might want to adjust your thinking. Cases are spiking again, we're approaching last summer's high. Does Covid scare everyone? Hell no, and it shouldn't. But... It's still running a 2-3% fatality rate in the US and a 30% fatality rate for older people who are overweight or other common conditions. That means pretty much all old people travel is gone. What percentage of the market are trips to see grandma or old people going to Florida? More importantly, how many businesses won't ask their employees to travel? Travel is going to be off by a huge percent until covid is stamped out. You can hope that people get less scared but a rational person doesn't want to risk their life for a business trip to Chicago. They'll stay home until it's all clear.

 

You might want to do some research before you post. Not all banks where saved nor was all of the auto industry. If DP is hanging his hat on to big to fail , AAL has much bigger problems than I thought .

I personally think AAL will survive this, but I am assuming they have a strategy and not just hanging out at the bar with the to big to fail mentally.

 

Nobody is hiding from bad news - we’re all professionals and have a Plan B. Whether AA liquidates or I end up a 777 CA with a smoking hot FA bouncing on my lap - the decisions I make going forward don’t change. It’s one thing to state an opinion, but you post the same doom and gloom over and over again, and that tells me a little about your motivation.

 

This is just......no........no

A lot will be learned when AA reports their earnings. Hopefully cash neutral by EOY or summer. That would be in line with DAL and UAL.

 

777-200s are still here because they are doing cargo runs and they are trying them on new routes like jfk-lax in Nov

 

No one else is furloughing?

Delta starts Nov 1
United took huge paycuts in form of reduced hours to stop furloughs
Even SWA says they will furlough without concessions

 

Chris reed isn’t the only one, but the people who post that they will be fine, but are obviously obsessed with the topic really annoy me. You may be fine, but you hope this career works out, be honest. Will my family be fine? Yes. Will they be better if AA survives? Certainly.

 

Yep. I think there’s a personality type that isn’t satisfied unless others around them are bummed out too. It’s one thing to have a pessimistic opinion - it very well could be accurate - but if you’re just saying the same thing over and over, it’s not providing any new insight, just noise. And for a lot of these guys I think that’s their underlying intent, whether they realize it or not.