AAL Removed from S&P500
 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatsp...irlines-stock/

I am amazed that this management team is still running the ******* show here. It's a shame honestly. I have been here almost 3 years and the missteps are just continual. This management team does not know what a world class airline is and I truly believe they won't be able to get us back to being one. I think Isom and the domestic growth/ small international management visionaries need to be replaced with outsiders. I am truly curious if the board is as incompetent. On a side note, I will say that I do love my job and as long as my check clears I'm a pretty happy camper. It is the competetive spirit in me though that wants to strive to be the best in what I do and it be damned that I expect leadership should want the same. Whenever I bring this up on a trip with Captains who have been here many years, it's the same answer.. American always is third place and no one cares to change it. I realize I am ranting a bit but I am curious, what do you guys think the path forward looks like for us to be back in the competition with Delta and United?

And why did you choose that title for the thread?

Because that’s exactly what is happening? Did you read the article at all?

The article failed to mention that though.

https://fortune.com/2024/09/06/palan...dex-reshuffle/

It's a market capitalization based index so that's how the cookie crumbles. Eventually we'll be dealing with some activist investors if they can't turn the stock around.

Serious question, why do you care about stock price? Seems like an odd thing to shake your fist at.

Read the article...admittedly have not been following AAL and the S&P .....but didnt get that info from this article.

Yeah my bad I thought it was the same article they shared on our FB group.

if a stock price goes to $0, yeah, why worry? Why are people talking about bankruptcy so much with Spirit and JetBlue? Go look at their stock price..
and then of course the wildcard PE Firm buying it up and that’s a crap shoot. Why care about the owners of the company?

So we still getting paid this month? This is a management and Wall St problem not a pilot problem. Just fly the airplane and worry about the things you can control.

We aren’t anywhere close to bankruptcy or the stock going to zero. If you want to talk about management doing a **** poor job, have at it, but sulking about the stock price is odd.

Deactivated from the S&P 500 after joining on March 16, 2015. Activated to the S&P MidCap 400.

Tbh all airline stocks are junk, terrible investments. DAL down 30%, UAL down 50%, AAL down 60% on 5y chart.

Idc about the stock. I care about management paying off debts efficiently so we have the capital to purchase new shiny things.

I agree, (for now) the issue becomes if we get so cheap someone buys us for our parts. That was a real concern back when Doug was running things for a brief period as well.

Getting kicked from the S&P isn't the end of the world but it's not great. Many Americans invest in the S&P and it helps keep your stock price up just because everyone is buying it blindly.

United will surpass our fleet size sometime over the next year or two if their deliveries continue. Delta makes massively more profit than we do. The question should be asked, what does a 2030, 2040, 2050 AA look like? Is there room for three legacy network carriers in the US?

SWA does domestic better/cheaper than us, and DL and UA do international better than us. We just sort of exist right now. Kinda like UA in 2010-2016.

They already have.

Take a deep breath. Go outside for a little. Drink some water. It will be ok.

I'm not saying we aren't getting paid or that AA is on the verge of shutting down doom and gloom. Of course these issues bother me as they should you. You have a vested interest in our future here and should care about the course that is plotted. Obviously we don't have control over these things but I'm not going to stop talking about said issues.

The article I posted wasn't the best, heres another one. Though I'm not much of a fan from these guys. https://viewfromthewing.com/american...out-of-sp-500/

This. fillllllerr

Still beats the hell out of where we came from my friend. Everything cycles in this industry. AA is still paying down debt. This isn't the time to climb out on the ledge just because UA is overextending themselves and DL is making money hand over fist as usual while they screw their employees and customers over. AA isn't going out of business. "Too big to fail". If anything Uncle Sugar will get involved again. Stocks mean nothing unless you're a hedge fund.

No one is going to buy this much debt.

Yeah. It's the best poison pill we could hope for.

AA will do what's it's always done. Plod along and be mediocre and keep their head just above the water. We all knew it when we came here. As long as the paychecks keep clearing I'll keep doing my job and enjoying my days off. Management makes the big bucks to worry about Wall St. not us.

I think you just answered your own question. All three of these carriers are cyclical and it'll ebb and flow as to who is mediocre and who is really doing well.

As long the paychecks keep coming who cares?

At this point it would do AA some good to use the retirements to realistically align the airline and bases that should be dehubbed like JFK, ord and lax.
AA should play to it's strengths in dfw, dca, phl, Mia and phx and dump the places it struggles in. Jfk, lax and ord are money losing pits that do nothing but cannibalize resources that could be used for the more profitable hubs.

Would also solve the issues of a/c deliveries. aa is not like delta or United, AA is more like the old USAir. A full service Lcc.

JetBlue is doing the same thing and it's working.

You have to have at least a decent presence in those markets. They're too important to simply give up.

JetBlue literally just started their plan and they just took out almost three billion in loans at ridiculously high rates. The jury is going to be out for a long time as to whether they are righting the ship.

No way this isn’t a troll post.

Why would it be a troll?
AA is failing in all three of those cities and other hubs are being harmed as a result of the vein attempt to make those replaces work.
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Hahahahahahaha. It's working? Please explain how. Give up LAX and Socal at your own peril.

JB is on the verge of following Spirit down the toilet. Just took out a high internet $3B loan to keep the place afloat. They're burning the furniture now. Not a good example of what to do.

Dehubbing JFK, ORD and LAX is asinine. All we would be doing is giving up the few remaining high value customers we have to United and Delta. It's not all about Joe Sixpack in Philly who wants to fly to FLL a few times a year.

They are cutting the unprofitable and sticking with what makes them money.

AA has already lost the "high value" customers.

There is a reason why there is zero growth in JFK, lax and ord.
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cant really grow JFK, slot controlled. No point in growing LAX until construction is done. Grow ORD with what airplanes being delivered?

They have not lost high value customers. Keeping those slots is more valuable than the slots not generating much profit. It’s part of the game. Nobody makes much profit out of LA and NY.

Valid, I hadn't thought of that.

Yes that is why I wrote that. People forget that AA made the most profit of any carrier back in 2016 IIRC, it was $7b. I'm optimisitc personally.

You're under-informed then. B6's intra-westcoast routes made money. Management thinks they can make more money in the immediate future by sending those planes to the Caribbean in exchange for gutting their west coast structure. B6 has an activist investor whose primary strategy is to invest in companies he believes in, but which he thinks are stymied by dysfunctional C-suites. Watch an interview of him and he says it very clearly, his aim is always to fix and/or replace upper-level management and then watch for positive results to trickle down into the company, thereby turning the whole place around. The goal of B6's current management is to make the next quarter green at all costs, long-term strategy be damned. They are trying to keep their jobs. Yes, their actions will probably help right the ship, but it comes with a high cost of not only continuing to underserve fly-over USA, but now extending that lack-luster strategy to the west coast. Ask your nearest west coast friend if they've ever flown on JetBlue. Drive around the large west coast cities and see if you spot any JetBlue advertising. It's not a thing. Do you honestly think B6's west coast customers want to connect through JFK/BOS to get to their new EU destinations? Or, conversely, would their east coast customers want to connect through LAX to reach their long-promised destinations in Hawaii? No, hell no. If you were thinking long-term, you'd be taking different actions. This is a short-term strategy and everyone knows it. All airlines struggle in LAX because nobody dominates it, not to mention all of the ancillary airports in Socal. There's 24 million people in Socal, plus another 3.5 million in Northern Baja (who, yes, use LAX because TIJ/SAN/SNA/ONT don't offer the same type of long-haul service). If you want to work for an airline that doesn't care to cater to such a large potential customer base, by all means, apply to B6, but don't think for a second that any legacy carrier is short-sighted enough to consider your suggestion.

UA is the flavor of the month right now, but their growth ambitions are sorta scary. 27,000+ pilots planned and an obscene number of aircraft on order. It's interesting because Kirby has said at this point the industry is inelastic...you can't create demand outta nothing. If it works out, good for them...but if it doesn't, it's gonna be ugly.

JetBlues west coast customers are Alaska Flyers.

JetBlue cut their west coast flights way back

Stock price has a lot to do with the future of a company. It to extent determines the cost to borrow capital, procure assets and influence political aspects. By far however the most important thing is keeping corporate raiders out of the balance sheet and cash flow. Corporate raider is a old term that is now called private equity. Sounds much better. Private equity comes in like a giant cash sucking vacuum. They suck up the cash for their investors and bolt for the next victim to bleed dry.

United would LOVE if AA pulled out of JFK.

Your strategy sucks and is already losing 'caus' that's what we are doing now. Shrink DFW and CLT, we already stuff too much through there. Any cost savings we get from over utilizing those airports are lost during our extreme and numerous industry leading IROPS at those two locations. We are permanently losing customers because if this misguided strategy. Move CLT slots to ORD and DFW slots to PHX. Grow ORD back up to 1000 plus pilots. You diversify flying to combat IROPs with ORD and you take advantage of the year-round great weather of PHX. Win win win.

Have you seen the AA balance sheet? There’s nothing to raid.

Dont bother. People who make these comments have zero clue how corporate finance works. None, whatsoever.

Follow my strategy.

MAGA

Make American Great Again