See previous posts.

 

It's just wild conspiracy type thinking that SK drew up a backroom deal with the city. I'm no SK fan but come on, that didn't happen.

What most likely happened is that UA saw the gate allocation method and decided to make a play to gain more gates/market share in ORD.

 

It isn't at all, it actually happened. The post COVID agreement was reneged. This is what started the mess at ORD and why the FAA rightfully cut the most flights out of UA.

 

In a meeting to determine flight cuts at ORD for the Summer season, United’s head of network planning Patrick Quayle said, “I think we can all agree Robert Isom is not Robert Crandall”.
https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net...jw&oe=69ED8B63

 

Nothing says class like personal attacks on your rivals CEO.

 

It was widely reported last year in both the Chicago and aviation press that the city initiated a review of gate allocation at the request of United Airlines. It may be a stretch to call it a backroom deal, but reallocation was initiated because UA took action. Presumably SK had little to do with this and it was driven by whomever is running UA ORD ops on a day to day basis.

For whatever reason, AA thought that the gate reallocation process would be placed on hold during terminal construction. They claim they believed that so strongly that it's why they sued. Obviously the judge thought differently. Whether they believed all that because they're incompetent or they were lied to? I doubt anyone on APC knows. My personal unfounded conspiracy theory is the Chicago Department of Aviation did what it did to sell more Jet A at the widly inflated prices they charge. If you've been there in the last year, you know.

Ironically, it probably mattered little between the FAA order and the new results of the reallocation process: https://www.chicagobusiness.com/tran...ited-american/

Looks like AA will get back 3 of the 4 gates they lost so now G will mostly be AA RJs again. Maybe they can take the carpet off the American Eagle logo.

 

“I want to talk about -- talk about proportionality and choices people are making. Our strategy was to grow all of our hubs and invest across the board. American chose differently. And if you -- American, if you look, chose to grow Austin; they chose to grow Charlotte, Miami, Dallas; they chose not -- they chose not to grow Chicago.” - PQ

Basically what I said before I saw the transcripts. Nothing petty, just intentional planning and execution of UnitedNext.

 

I don’t know if that’s a personal attack? He wasn’t criticizing his looks or personality. He was correctly pointing out that AA has been an operational and strategic disaster ever since Isom took the helm. I would be hard pressed to come up with even one significant win during his tenure. Almost every strategic move has been a failure.

It seems as if even the analysts have stopped asking the hard questions during earnings calls. They just lob up some softballs for Isom and team. The industry has evolved from the big three to the big two and everyone else.

Let’s see how we do tomorrow. UAL increased revenue by 10%+ and booked net income of $700 million. Many thought they were growing too fast and in an era of global uncertainty they would lose money hand over fist. Here we are in a war time environment with a fuel crisis and they are still printing money. Maybe an army of high CASM RJs flying to low $ markets and farming out a large chunk of our international network to JV partners wasn’t the winning formula.

 

I think Kirby is right, there's only room for 2 premium carriers. I'm not sure where that leaves us, but consolidation of the rest of us is a foregone conclusion. Our financials will be so depressing tommorow.

 

It should be mentioned that before coming to UA, Patrick Quayle worked at AA for 10 years (according to his LinkedIn page). He likely interacted with Isom during those 10 years.