This is the doomsday scenario but it feels right without a major management philosophy shift (which scapegoating Vasu didn't accomplish). They will order 787-10s to replace 777-200s because they are equivalent to beancounters in the same way XLRs are to 757s. They insist cargo doesn't make money.

That orphans the small 777-300ER fleet so they wind that down and park them. Hopefully something less disappointing than this happens. I want to be positive on the future of the company and I want to retire a widebody captain. But they need to demonstrate that they care about serious growth in that space and they absolutely have not at this point.

How many years are you projected to be a CLT WB captain (it was easier when myaacareer was running)? They will eventually replace all 777s with 787s until something better comes along.

0. I'll retire in the high 4000s so we need about 30-40 more WBs than current book (or a CBA change that requires more captains instead of relief FOs) so junior CA goes into the 5000s. So I'm very interested in growing the WB fleet.

In what world was Vasu a scapegoat? He's taking the lion's share of the blame, but the man was the CCO, it wasn't like they canned a low-level manager.

Sure, he wasn't the only one making bad calls but moving past his "sun belt strategy" and "our product is our network" has been a welcome relief. The sales strategy that hamstrung us was his brainchild. He wanted to be a disruptor to an industry that is stodgy and established (corporate travel) and failed.

People engage in the same revisionist history with Kirby. Sure, he's trying to be Juan Trippe 2.0 at United, but when he was at AW/US/AA, he was all about RJ's, shrinking mainline, and keeping our pay low.

The issue is that everyone above Vasu (Isom and the board) ultimately signed off on these decisions, and they are still here.

Vasu also brought on our expansion into eastern European markets as well. He made a huge push for adding destinations out of hubs and successfully beat Spirit down in DFW as well.

He was really only wrong about one thing - getting rid of the booking systems corporate agents use. And he wasn't even wrong - it needs and will be done - he was just early. Which is the same as being wrong most cases. We pushed $2b in revenue to DL and UA as the post-covid upswing was happening.

I agree about Kirby - he was pushing for 99 seat RJs his entire tenure here. UA had a severely underutilized route network that Smisek had floundered, Kirby just used his AA rolodex game plan, took what he learned here and applied it there. He's a smart guy but still a dick.

Isom was COO, which is operations, he had nothing to do with revenue. Vasu had a background in revenue and at one point was chief revenue officer. His last title was CCO, which is basically the head person in charge of all revenue.

American Airlines Names Vasu Raja Vice President, International Revenue Management

I get that, but the Board and CEO aren't going to fire themselves if they were all complicit. The only way they can get removed is with a shareholder vote or activist takeover.

They get the luxury of changing their tune, but they were all drunk on the Vasu kool-aid too. I'd rather fix our problems organically than have an outside influence (like what's happening at SWA) come in and upset the apple cart. Devil you know vs. the devil you don't.

Vasu gets a bad rap.
Yes he messed up the corporate travel issue but the plan was actually pretty solid and sound the problem was the execution. But as Name User said he was the big reason we pushed so hard into Europe pre covid. He was willing to try new things and if covid had not happened who knows where we would be. Had covid not happened the plan was to serve something like 7 or 8 cities out of seattle alone not to mention his expansion into Morocco and India.

Sure, but there is no reason to think that they will change their tune when it comes to the international presence AA has.