Sorry. I'm not in the industry yet. Good explanation though. Thanks.

 

PHL's going nowhere. Europe feed.

CLT's going nowhere. Will always be w/b poor ($.02).

 

I always assumed one of PHL or CLT was going to fall. Before reading about the profitability of CLT, I expected a bit of shrinking there. It's not far from DC, which in turn isn't that far from PHL, which is damn close to NYC. Then again, PHL is a terrible airport to operate in and out of in the weather, yeah, so is LGA, but AAG shouldn't want to lessen their presence in NYC.

I do think it's easy to see that there are too many hubs too close together (one reason I was skeptical about the merger in the beginning). One would assume Parker has a plan, but we will have to wait for it.

It's amazing to me that the one base that's a bit removed from this tangle (ORD) Is the one losing a few lines.

 

Not only are there too many hubs, we actually have a surplus of wide bodies. While we need long haul replacements for our thinner routes currently using the 757/767 fleet (which is falling apart), we have an abundance of 772s that they will place on Europe flying this spring. Way more capacity pax and cargo then is needed, versus a 764 or 332 that the other carriers are using. Meanwhile, even with the olympics approaching, the south american economy is killing the load factors.
Bottom line, probably see more consolidation at the international level anyway. Thank goodness for cheap oil to offset some of this, but still, something has got to give.

 

I used to think it mattered these performance metrics, they'll matter when the executive team gets a spreadsheet that shows them it is affecting the profits and executive compensation package, then and only then will we see change.

 

Step 1 -- Begin parking "older, less-efficient" aircraft on South American routes (without ordering a comparable replacement).

Step 2 -- Announce a new Joint Venture with a large South American firm...

Step 3 -- Begin replacing the longer routes with the new J/V partner, as we do not have anything to fly them, very slowly (like heating up the pot of water the frog swims in).

Step 4 -- Continue bragging to employees and customers about having the "youngest fleet" in the industry, as the "old" planes go away.

Step 5 -- Eventually, costs are reduced and risk is transferred to the partner, with no major pushback from employees, as a large chunk of the South American flying has been given to less expensive "partners" while still "serving" all those markets (plus hundreds more -- yay!!!!).

Step 6 -- Rake in the profits. And start looking at how to launch more "joint ventures" in Europe and Asia.....

 

I believe this also. PHL has some of the best yields to Europe and they'll look to expand to Asia out of PHL. Look for the Airbus 350 to hang around in PHL.

CLT is our best SouthEast Hub to keep Delta and ATL on it's toes. You pull out of CLT and that sends TONS of people thru ATL. Look for CLT to continue to have a handful of Europe flights and continue crushing it to the Islands.

New Planes, New Pilots, New Routes. We just need to focus on Costumer service.

 

It is inspiring to finally see AA pilots on the interwebs expressing such optimism for the company for a change.

Between Billy and Skubajet, AA finally has a cheer squad.

 

AA's for the past 6 months for my personal family travel has been disappointing. Delayed flights not due to weather or maintenance.

 

Billy isn't even out of new hire indoc yet.