I believe most of the above argument is argued with merit. However, it ignores the fact that TWA employees became furlough fodder for nAAtive employees. Without that "cushion" of TWA employees, many more nAAtive employees would have been employed. The nAAtive employees enjoyed a windfall at the expense of nAAtive employees. The real watchword in any merger/acquisition is that no party receive a windfall.
Aa Screwup Helps Southwest
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WingNaPrayer
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Well, that made a whole lot of no sense. However, if what you are saying is that a lot of AA people were able to keep their jobs because there was an abundance of TWA people to dump instead, then you are missing the entire point of the conversation.
Had AA not greedily gobbled up TWA, their financial balance sheets would have undoubtedly been much better and most likely they would not be in as dire red ink as they are now. The TWA people would have been out anyway, as their carrier would have liquidated and they would have been on the streets just the same, but only a couple of years sooner.
If TWA employees think they would have fared better under any other airline buying them up, none have given any kind of viable examples. Hell, their old boss was even in the bidding to buy them up, and that should have told them all that they were pawns loooooooong before AA entered the scene.
The fact still remains, AA bought up TWA assets out of greed and competition, in order to make sure their competitors would not buy up the assets and end up with the routes/gates/aircraft, etc. In healthy financial times, that might have been a smart move, but as everyone now knows, AA was in a financial downturn long before 9/11, and were, in fact, loosing money hand over fist before the TWA deal ever presented itself as well. It was a stupid move, period. AA will never recover from that mistake.
Suffice it to say, there are unemployed TWA people who will always blame AA, AA employees and the bankruptcy court for their problems. They will never look in the mirror and say "it was more your fault than anyone else" because they don't want to admit that the reason they were ripe for buy-up by AA or anyone else for that matter, was because they were already spinning in the bowl after the flush before any deals were struck.
The smart move would have been to just let TWA liquidate and go away quietly. No one would be blamed outside of the TWA realm, and 99% of the conversations that have taken place on message boards since would never have wasted a single byte of bandwidth.
50 years from now, former TWA employees in the old airline folks home will be rocking away saying . . . remember when AA caused TWA to go bankrupt and we all lost our jobs? Instead of saying . . . .wasn't it horrible how we were just unable to keep up with the competition, and since we all thought TWA was forever, we never paid attention to the fact that we were croaking out a slow death.
It's a fight that will last in perpetuity, or until the last former TWA employee is left standing.
Had AA not greedily gobbled up TWA, their financial balance sheets would have undoubtedly been much better and most likely they would not be in as dire red ink as they are now. The TWA people would have been out anyway, as their carrier would have liquidated and they would have been on the streets just the same, but only a couple of years sooner.
If TWA employees think they would have fared better under any other airline buying them up, none have given any kind of viable examples. Hell, their old boss was even in the bidding to buy them up, and that should have told them all that they were pawns loooooooong before AA entered the scene.
The fact still remains, AA bought up TWA assets out of greed and competition, in order to make sure their competitors would not buy up the assets and end up with the routes/gates/aircraft, etc. In healthy financial times, that might have been a smart move, but as everyone now knows, AA was in a financial downturn long before 9/11, and were, in fact, loosing money hand over fist before the TWA deal ever presented itself as well. It was a stupid move, period. AA will never recover from that mistake.
Suffice it to say, there are unemployed TWA people who will always blame AA, AA employees and the bankruptcy court for their problems. They will never look in the mirror and say "it was more your fault than anyone else" because they don't want to admit that the reason they were ripe for buy-up by AA or anyone else for that matter, was because they were already spinning in the bowl after the flush before any deals were struck.
The smart move would have been to just let TWA liquidate and go away quietly. No one would be blamed outside of the TWA realm, and 99% of the conversations that have taken place on message boards since would never have wasted a single byte of bandwidth.
50 years from now, former TWA employees in the old airline folks home will be rocking away saying . . . remember when AA caused TWA to go bankrupt and we all lost our jobs? Instead of saying . . . .wasn't it horrible how we were just unable to keep up with the competition, and since we all thought TWA was forever, we never paid attention to the fact that we were croaking out a slow death.
It's a fight that will last in perpetuity, or until the last former TWA employee is left standing.
At the time of the buyout no one knew what the following years had in store for us. There is no "windfall" when you take major paycuts to keep your company out of BK. Quite possibly AA would not have needed the so call "cushion" of TWA employees had we not purchased them. 6000 flight attendants are on furlough. only 2000-3000 of which came from TW. With the rumors of 20 airplanes returning to service next year perhaps we will see some TW'ers recalled. Lets hope we see everyone back as soon as possible.L1011Ret said:
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<_< Wings------I think we've been over this ground many times! And you can put any kind of spin on this subject you care to!! But the fact is, there is more than a good chance, the TWA bankrupcy was "pre-arranged". Even so, how long could we have continued flying is debatable! But I feel you are all missing the point! We as TWA employees had no say in this, none, nada!! The whole deal was predicated on the fact that the TWA employees were to be treated "FAIRLY"!!!! This didn't happen! That's the main point of our Grevance!!!Would things have turned out differant if the ecconomy had been good? I don't think so! a.a. would have taken a differant path to get here, but I BELIEVE THE END RESULT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE SAME! And I don't say this lightly! By the way, TWA's board were talking to Boeing, and American West, when Compton through it to a.a.! Could something have come of these talks? We'll never know, now will we?
WingNaPrayer
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It wasn't your company. The TWA employees didn't own TWA, they worked for it. Of course you had no say in the matter! I don't know of any major corporation that runs as a democracy, if that were the case, we'd probably see a helluva lot more situations like the TWA demise.MCI transplant said:
I know we are getting totally off topic here. I apologize for continuing this TW debate. The TW employees did have a say. They accepted the terms of buyout thru their respective unions. It was a gamble. If they didn't accept the terms the results could range from TW liquidating to their entire contracts ripped apart. But they had a choice. We can say what if til the cows come home. But what ifs don't pay the bills. Even if the BK was pre-arranged the deal would not have been sealed until the employees of TWA agreed to the terms. TWA employees could have stopped the deal. Had TW been liquidated the city of STL would be far worse off than they are today with AA still maintaining a hub status there. We will probably never know the fine details of the AA/TW deal. But to suggest that the TW employees had no say is not really true.
MCI transplant
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MiAAmi----Again, This is getting us nowhere! Your totally correct! We could have turned down a.a./a.a. unions! With a Gun to our heads, we could have! But I feel Carty (a.a.) showed his colors when Senitor Kit Bond tryed to protect our Senority! Carty through one of his famous tantrums, stating a.a. would through it's total resources behind a way to defeat his Bill! It worked! Bond backed down!
I don't think the expression "gun to our head" applies here. It was a tough choice, yes. If you had said No, you would have opened up other options for yourself. At some point those other options must not have seemed as good as the one offered by AA. If all those other offers could have saved TWA then why did everyone agree to the AA offer? Whats done is done. The point I am trying to make is that you had some control over what happened to you or at the very least some say in the matter. If anyone had a crystal ball we wouldn't even be talking about this issue.
FibberMcGee
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Do you ever read my posts?MiAAmi said:
Once more I'll try again. We didn't really have a choice and frankly at the time if we had had a choice we would have gone with AA anyway so its really not an issue there. Of course TWA was in financial woes, everybody knows that. Was is over for TWA-that will be debated forever. Every year for the past 5 or 6 years the STL business community gave TWA money-in the form of prepaid tickets to make it through the winter and that had not happened yet but would have. If AA had not been in the picture and apparently that had been for a long time we may have merged with HP and the two airlines together could have been a pretty good fit. Everything is speculation of course and always will be.
Look at it from the employee's position for once. If you were given the choice of HP or AA, who would take? You say all TWA people blame AA for the demise of TWA. That's not true. It was Icahn and Boeing that I feel ultimately killed the airline. Icahn for obvious reasons and Boeing for the high aircraft lease rates.You are fond of saying this was an acquisition not a merger. That's fine too, in the end it doesn't matter anyway. 18000 of 20000 are now out on the streets with not much hope of returning but that's okay with you because after all they are TWA people and not really relevant.
The bottom line is had 9/11 not happened this could have been a great thing but 9/11 did happen. MiAAmi we didn't have any real control so stop saying that but as I pointed out AA was the best choice anyway. Yes, your way might have taken place and TWA might have gone out anyway but we'll never know. When the acquisition took place the TWA were willing to do what was necessary to make it work and we did just that. You put the blame on AA's problems squarely on the purchase of TWA-give me a break. It was Bin Laden that caused all this. If the operations in MIA/DFW/ORD were as efficient as the STL hub was you all could be doing much better as well. If had a crystal ball we would have stopped the planes from flying into the WTC not stop the TWA deal.
First off I was referring to a post from MCI transplant. I never said anything about it being OK for anyone to be on the street, quite the opposite. I don't put AA's financial woes squarely on the purchase of TWA. I will disagree with you that you did have a choice. HP's stock is worth more than AMR right now, maybe that would have been a better option for you. Fact is you didnt make that choice.FibberMcGee said:
FibberMcGee
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I'm sorry. I was an agent and no one asked me and I didn't vote on anything. I didn't have any say in this deal. But as I stated the best choice at the time was AA of course, why wouldn't it have been?MiAAmi said:
I want you to understand I do not blame you or any other AA employee for the demise of TWA and that I am grateful that I had a job for 2 more years. I also want you to know it was NOT the fault of the TWA employees in STL that caused the closing of the hub. We worked very hard to make STL the best performing hub on the system and that we did and it is undeniable. I am in the process of losing my home because finding a job out there is horrible. Here is the difference between you and me. I wanted the STL hub to work. You were against it all the way for whatever reason. I also sincerely hope this is the end of the layoffs and that AA returns to profitablity soon so that as many people that can get get back to work. That is highly unlikely for the people in STL. AA is a great company but it could have been even greater. Peace to you MiAAmi and all of you, especially those out of work. If you look at the beginning of this thread you will see what I tried to do.
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Yes it was!WingNaPrayer said:
30% of the TWA stock, after the second trip through the bankruptcy court (45% following the first reorganization), was owned by the employees and controlled by trusts managed by the unions. Many employees exercised their options to purchase additional shares at discounted prices. In reality, about half the ownership was in the hands of the employees.
