PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH
Veteran
- Oct 9, 2003
- 1,401
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I just heard on the TV that Delta is going to dump it's pensions on the PGBC anyway! So much for paying for it in 17 years. You know NWA can't be far behind.
AA at pension disadvantage!
- Thread starter Hopeful
- Start date
PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH
Veteran
- Oct 9, 2003
- 1,401
- 2
Princess, I'm not a big fan of this law, but on this point, you are missing the point. Yes, you are debt free, and good for you (My house is paid for also. Good for me, too.), but...
1. Your home is an asset whose value is not readily accessible in case of an emergency. It can be accessed through cash-out mortgages or selling it, etc., but that takes some time.
2. We do not know what is going to happen vis a vis fuel prices, the future of NWA (suddenly available Asian routes?), etc. If NWA should go Ch. 7 and we had just spent $2.3B of the $5.5B we have "overfunding" the pension plan for the future, we would not have the money to buy routes or airplanes to fly them.
(And, yes it would be overfunding the plan. The $2.3B the company owes the plan is based on the assumption that every employee currently on the payroll will stay with the company until they are eligible for a full retirement. That ain't gonna happen. Take me for instance, I won't live long enough to get a "full" pension. I will have to work until almost 67 just to get my 10 years that will qualify me for lifetime travel benefits. (If I'm wrong about that and I can "retire" sooner and still get the travel benefits, I probably won't stay that long. I have no desire to out-Juanita Juanita.))
3. Spending the entire $5.5B on debt reduction will only eliminate about 1/4 of the total debt right now. And, would hamstring the company as far as strategic options that would cost money--buying/starting routes, getting a/c.
Right now it is best to have a pile of readily available cash; so that the company can move quickly if necessary. And, Lord knows, if fuel goes down and NWA survives, we could sure use some new airplanes. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart has not had a sale on those for some time now.
So, AA has 5.3 billion in the bank to aquire more debt? Airlines don't buy airplanes anymore. They lease them. Nothing is keeping AA from aquiring more airplanes now. AA is not smart enough to buy just the routes of NWA. They will buy the whole thing with the reasoning-They altready have people in place. Just look at TWA. We wouldn't be 20 billion in debt if it wasn't for that stupid deal.
and "we" most likely would still be employed. Just look at AMERICA WEST. They were in the same financial shape. The infusion of the 9-11 "help" was a God-send for them. AA was able to "use" TWA to get more $$s after 9-11 and then, well the rest is history in the making. I would have bet that you would have seen TW,AMERICA WEST, and Alaska Airlines all one happy family. And since we had a more "employee friendly" merger/acquisition history, I'll bet that there would have never been an ethnic cleansing. It is especially frustrating when there were "other" proposals that addressed the RPA financial requirements without such drastic job loss. The APFA was too arrogant and inexperienced in concessionary negotiations to even entertain looking at something they hadn't crafted.
PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH
Veteran
- Oct 9, 2003
- 1,401
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If AA hadn't bought TWA, you would have been on the street anyway. TWA was going down before even 9-11 happened. Even in bankruptcy court the other potential buyers of TWA couldn't even come up with the down payment to buy it. TWA was an airline that needed to die, but some dumbasses like Don Carty+Gerard Arpey just had to "save" it.
TWskyliner
Senior
- May 20, 2005
- 280
- 48
Well that didn't result in a "big happy family" for many years.Like Ozark did...
Nope. Not me. You see, unlike you, I am not counting on retiring from AA. At twa, you people were so dependent on it that you gave and gave and gave and were the lowest compensated among all the airlines. You gave and gave in the hopes of keeping twa alive long enough to be acquired; then you would expect payback for your constant capitulation in the form of top pay and full seniority for your sacrafices on the backs of the employees at the acquring airline; AA in this case. You can hate us all you want but it won't change a thing.
I was talking to a pilot one day and asked if he was ex-twa, he responded that he was ex-Ozark. He went on to say that he had to take a pay cut when twa bought Ozark and that the work rules at twa were worse than Ozark. I got the impression that this pilot was not happy at twa. On another board, there are some OZ pilots claiming they got screwed by the twa pilots.Well that didn't result in a "big happy family" for many years.
Old news. What you heard on the TV is that DL is going to terminate its pilot plan. Delta announced months ago that it intended to cancel the pilots' plan regardless of this legislation because its 50% lump sum provision would cause a run on the bank by early retiring pilots if not terminated. Even this legislative relief doesn't help that problem. Delta has repeatedly said it intends to try to fund its other employees plan.
1. The government would most likely not have given TWA any of the loan money because everyone knows it would have went straight to Ichans pocket because of Karabu. The government would have claimed twa was going to die even before 9/11.
2. No one was going to buy twa and infect themselves with karabu; which still had another 2 or 3 years left before it expired.
3. I am just sure the employees at Alaska and America West would have been more than willing to be stapled under you and they would have just stepped aside while you took the best routes, the best cities, and the best schedules.
4. If twa was so valuable, then why didn't anyone go to the bankruptcy auction and outbid AA (I wish someone would have).
5. The nAAtives and their unions were adamant in their opposition to the deal while the twa unions supported it and waived their scope. What could the nAAtives have done? A slow down or sick out? No, because the AA unions "learned their lesson" after the Reno debacle. The only thing we could do was defend ourselves against the twaers.
Leasing v. Buying costs roughly the same - just two different ways of financing something you don't have enough cash to just buy. Southwest pays cash for most of its airplanes without leasing and without debt.
AA is going to pay down some of its debt now that it isn't facing the requirement to contribute $2.3 billion to its pension plans next year.
PRINCESS KIDAGAKASH
Veteran
- Oct 9, 2003
- 1,401
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Southwest is different. Southwest doesn't waste money with satellite TV, first, business class seating, assigned seating, admirals clubs,unnessary multi-billion dollar terminal renovations(that AA still doesn't own even after they are finished),inflight meals etc.. Southwest figured out a long time ago that all people want is a seat and that seat is transported from city to city on time for "peanuts".
Who are you kidding FWAAA? AA pay down debt with 2.3 billion squandered from it's employee's pensions? HA!,HA!,HA!,HA!,HA! AA is going to waste that money somewhere. How about a new paint scheme or another terminal renovation. I know! How about a hostile buyout of Southwest?
The former.
Wretched Wrench
Veteran
- Apr 21, 2003
- 1,626
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from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1154736927...hs&ru=yahoo
"Continental Airlines and AMR Corp.'s American Airlines will get 10 years to fully fund their plans and may get further concessions in the fall."
Concessions? EEEK!
Anybody got any info on that?
"Continental Airlines and AMR Corp.'s American Airlines will get 10 years to fully fund their plans and may get further concessions in the fall."
Concessions? EEEK!
Anybody got any info on that?
