Wrong.
The cost of AA's (labor + MMR) is still greater than the cost of Brand X's (labor + outsourcing expenses + MMR).
The numbers are all there on the quarterly financials to see.
Just go to the statement of consolidated operations, and look for the line marked either wages or salaries, and then look for the aircraft maintenance, materials, and outside repairs. Take an Advil, Add those two lines together, and then divide by available seat miles to get your comparison.
For starters...
DL = 1672+374=2046 / 53301 = .0384 per ASM
AA = 1703+ 267=1970 / 36847 = .0535 per ASM
Quarterly finacials are even less useful than annuals. Its not a big enough window for making comparasions.
Something with those numbers doesnt seem right.
AA Passenger miles flown 2009 =196,939,000,000
Delta Passenger miles flown 2009=161,904,000,000
AA Fleet size= 615
Delta Fleet size =745
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_largest_airlines
If your numbers are correct the .0151cent difference is most likely because of the winglets, new interiors and other expensive Mods that AA has been doing. The question is really what would it cost AA if they sent all that work out?
AA also does a lot of 3P work, the labor costs of providing 3P work distort our maint costs/ASM because although that labor produces Revenue it doesnt produce any ASMs, thus artificailly driving our maint cost per ASM up. Ironically the company uses the 3P work against us, the more we do the more they get to use it against us.
While Delta does some 3P work as well they try to sub it out.
Another factor thats not put in there is the loss of use time.
If you look at the above numbers AA had 130 less airplanes in 2009 but produced 35 billion more ASMs. How were they able to do this? A big part is the short turn times our OH can deliver and the fact that once they send them out our guys on the line dont have to spend weeks cleaning them up. How much of a savings is there by not having to pay leases or loan payments on over 130 aircraft? Delta gets arount 217 million ASMs per aircraft per year, AA gets 320 million.
AA produced 18% more ASMs with a fleet that was 17% smaller, giving AA roughly a 35% advantage with (according to your very narrow numbers which are distorted due to the items mentioned earlier) a 28% cost disadvantage
in that quarter. That disadvantage was probably easily wiped out by the cost savings of needing 130 less aircraft. Once those Mods are done the numbers will be even more in AA's favor.
So yes AA may have spent .0151 cents more for maintenance
in that quarter but they got 32% more ASMs per aircraft than Delta did last year.
AA was able to produce more ASMs with less aircraft than Delta. While Delta may be saving money on maintenance they are spending it on having a fleet that is 17% bigger that delivers 18% less ASMs. Thats like buying an extra car so you wont have to change the oil as much.
Imaging what AA could save if they had a motivated workforce!!! They could continue to reduce headcount and see an increase in ASMS, but unfortunately they think they can terrorize us into giving them all we have to give. They can take away our benifits and workrules but they cant make us give them a servicible aircraft on time. For every concession they extract its that much less effort they get when that plane breaks. We , without a doubt have the best quality OH that can be had but they are still machines, and they break, and when they do thats when the real cost of concessions hit the company.
