My participation in this thread was because some people wanted to mention me even though I hadn't participated in the thread - and I responded to the issues that were raised. Later, others raised legitimate STRATEGIC issues which they felt should be included in the discussion of AA/US - and that included competitive considerations. DL IS a competitor to US and AA... while some don't want to hear about DL, anyone that wants to talk about AA/US must do so within the context of the industry.
And then we've had some side issues regarding the size of WN vs DL, DL's strategy at LAX etc....
I have responded to the discussions in the context of the thread in which they appear - and may I suggest that those of you who don't want to talk about competitors in the industry instead focus on your internal labor and customer service issues - because I don't participate in those threads.
If there are competitive or strategic issues involved, then you can't and won't discuss those in isolation without considering the rest of the industry - unless you want to participate in a closed discussion where focusing on your little world allows you to forget what is really going on in the world around you.
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Go ahead and puke if it makes you feel better... but it won't change the world in which you live. Understanding what is happening around you and figuring out how to live in might make you just reduce some of your self-induced nausea.
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DL was out to destroy US? Really? have that in writing? Your perception based on the fact that DL has gained market share relative to US in dozens of cities up and down the east coast, perhaps, but it is hardly something you can find in writing.... but let's not doubt that the airline industry is highly competitive and DL will do what all well run companies do and that is increase their profitability and if that comes at the expense of a competitor, that is the way the business works. The airline industry isn't a regulated utility anymore where each airline had their own territory or routes they served free from competition or if it existed, it was carefully controlled by the government. If you want that kind of industry, electric utilities are probably the place you need to be.
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Jim,
My boat will sail today and tomorrow whether WN is the largest domestic airline or not - and so will DL's and so will WN's.
WN's claim to being the largest domestic airline based on passenger boardings instead of looking at revenue or actual passenger miles traveled is alot like telling your friends at a party that you spent all day mowing your lawn. Knowing the size of your lawn and having similarly sized lawns, your friends share that they cut their lawns in 30-45 minutes and also mention that the homeowners association awarded them the award of best manicured lawns in the neighborhood. As the discussion further progresses, it becomes apparent that they use riding lawnmowers while you use a weed eater to cut your lawn. Not only does the riding lawnmower cut more grasss at a time but it does it consistently and it bags the grass so it isn't necessary to rake afterwards.
Simple illustration - and I have seen people cut grass with weedeaters - but the end result still is a question of who used their resources most effectively to get the job done.
You can whip this little sub-topic into another frenzy if you wish but would you like to show me anyone other than WN's PR department who really cares? Would you like to show me evidence of any BOD or investor that cares whether WN or any other airline carries more passengers or not?
I can tell you that counting passengers as the basis for determining the relevance of a company is a meaningless relic of the regulated era that has little if any correlation to what airlines actually do as businesses which is to make money.
Everything financial about the airline industry today includes regional carriers. Yes, whether a flight is operated by a mainline or regional carrier mattters to labor - as it should.... but labor doesn't even care about the number of passengers boarded. They care about numbers of flights/aircraft/RPMs and ASMs. Creating an artificial division between regional carrier and mainline operations to argue a point that isn't even relevant to anyone but a few people in Washington and one airline's PR department won't answer or solve any of the real strategic issues facing the world, including the airline industry.
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The real strategic issue of this thread remains whether AA and US TOGETHER could create more value than they have been able to or might create on their own... and whether US can make a merger with AA work any better than has any of the multiple other mergers in which US has engaged in the past.
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And like or not, answering that question will require looking at what other carriers have done, including DL and UA specifically since they remain the closest peer match to AA who will be trying to figure out how it can again compete with DL and UA who have restructured their operations and successfully expanded thru mergers. In addition, WN remains AA's most significant domestic competitive threat and DL, UA, and WN now control 2/3 of the US domestic market. Like it or not, but AA/AMR's creditors will look at the how well AA/US can compete against the new order in the airline industry which is being led by DL, UA, and WN, each of which have made their own strategic moves - and each of which has made the strategic challenges facing AA and US even greater.
If AA and US can create more value together than they can separately, then there might be a future transaction - assuming someone else doesn't decide they want the pieces or whole of either AA or US and they can argue THEY can create more strategic value.
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The best way for US to ensure that it can win in its strategic objectives involves winning at what it should be winning at right now - and it doesn't have anything to do with AA.
