Bob was right about 3Billion profit

[1AA]

CLT is US' lowest cost hub, guess you havent heard Doug say CLT will grow, not shrink.

PHL is too congested Air Traffic wise and has no room for expansion.

CLT has survived and thrived through two mergers all ready.

And US is involved in picking Jerry Orr's replacement to ensure it remains on target for costs and growth.

Yea well RDU and BNA were hubs for AA. BNA and RDU made no sense to have two hubs so close to each other. When MIA opened up guess what happened?
RDU was dehubbed and BNA turned into a ghost town in a few short years after MIA opened up as a hub and RDU shrunk. So how does CLT survive? MIA is a money maker. If you take flights out of MIA and shift to CLT then MIA will lose traffic and money. Not going to happen unless this is the plan Parker wants.

 

[700UW]

No one in the Northeast, Midwest or West is gonna connect in MIA, CLT and MIA offer two totally different options.

RDU and BNA couldnt compete with CLT or ATL.

 

[robbedagain]

if any hub gets de hubbed... i bet it will be phx. i believe clt would stay a hub

an example... if a pax flying from jax to ric and theyre a business person... best choice jax clt ric and return..
why would that business person fly jax south to mia then turn around and fly north to work in ric only to turn around and fly ric to mia bypassing jax to land in mia only to turn around and fly up mia to jax
yes i know there are a number of other ways but i use that as an example or if say youre in PNS AND GOING TO SAY RIC CLT WOULD BE THE BEST CONNECTION RATHER THAN MIA

 

[blue collar]

No one in the Northeast, Midwest or West is gonna connect in MIA, CLT and MIA offer two totally different options.

RDU and BNA couldnt compete with CLT or ATL.

You're right, they won't use MIA. They'll connect in ORD, DFW, or PHL.

 

[700UW]

They wont fly west to fly back east using ORD.

PHL is too congested and no room for expansion and the horrible ATC delays.

So someone going from BOS to say RIC would fly to DFW or ORD?

Your out of your mind.

 

[FWAAA]

They wont fly west to fly back east using ORD.

PHL is too congested and no room for expansion and the horrible ATC delays.

So someone going from BOS to say RIC would fly to DFW or ORD?

Your out of your mind.

A passenger flying BOS to RIC would connect at PHL or DCA, both of which are logical online connections. CLT would be far out of the way for BOS-RIC. Right now, US flies BOS-RIC nonstop, so no connection is necessary.

CLT is a more logical hub to connect the mythical JAX-RIC passenger.

 

[Topcat187]

Yeah, Im sure glad we negotiated that profit sharing away! After all, it was useless.....

One thing that will help AMR’s bottom line is that the unions negotiated away profit sharing, the elimination of which he estimated added $300 million to $450 million in EBITDAR for AMR.

The above, copied from this article:

http://aviationblog....n-in-2014.html/

 

[Bob Owens]

Yeah, Im sure glad we negotiated that profit sharing away! After all, it was useless.....

One thing that will help AMR’s bottom line is that the unions negotiated away profit sharing, the elimination of which he estimated added $300 million to $450 million in EBITDAR for AMR.

The above, copied from this article:

http://aviationblog....n-in-2014.html/

If you recall in 2003 we were promised a revote, then the revote was cancelled because they added Profit Sharing, We were told that AA had $22 billion in debt and only $17 billion in revenue as a scare tactic prior to the vote by our Union. Well they pretty much cleared that debt by 2010 and never paid a penny in profit sharing, then in the Summer of 2011 they decide to buy over 500 more new airplanes and prop that Debt number back up again. So the debt they have now is pretty much tied to the new aircraft they are buying which will save them a lot of money on fuel and maintenance, and their revenues have increased to around $25billion with 30% fewer planes and roughly half the workers who are still earning less than they were in 2003. The company is slated to make Billions in profits over the next few years. Are the projections overly optimistic? Probably, but either way we are probably coming up on the most profitable years we will ever see in this industry, so what does our union do? Give away profit sharing. So on top of the worst contract in the industry we dont even have the chance that we could get some of that back through profit sharing which is the arguemeny the company lawyer used in court to justify abrogating and allowing the company to impose .We should have recieved the 3.5% anyway, the raise doesnt even make up for the Week of Vacation and the Holidays we dont get (the ones we gave up that nobody else did to save the Pension and Retiree medical that are now gone) let alone our much lower wage. Even with the small increase we are way below the rest of the industry and with that and the profit sharing we would have to make in profits more than the combined profits of the entire industry for both of those things combined to even bring us close to what they make. In other words no matter how profitable we helped make AA we still would not earn what our peers are earning. What really stings is that even though our peers earn a lot more some of them get Profit Sharing on top of that!!! AA would still have a huge competative edge over their rivals as far as maintenance labor costs per hour.

So we get profit sharing when it pays nothing and give it away when it will pay something. Here's the thing, the people who had us give it away were inviolved in high level negotiations, they know what the projected profits are, the company lawyer slipped in court and let it out that they expected to be making around $2.8 billion without US. Yet they still gave it away, why didnt they give back their BS "Gain Sharing" plan where we have to promise to make AA "best in class" in return for "worst in industry compensation and workrules" which still isnt fully written 6 months later? Oh yea, thats right, that was Don's idea.

Whether or not it turns out that the 3.5% is better than the profit sharing remains to be seen, but for better or worse the Profit sharing was voted on, the 3.5% was not. Therin lies the problem. People who are not affected by what they do are calling the shots, and thats wrong.

 

[WorldTraveler]

World Traveler why do you always have to write long winded posts?
Can you please get to the point utilizing one paragraph or maybe two?
I can almost be sure that most of us here on this forum skip past your long winded posts.
Please try the short version. It may get more responses.

Because an accurate, realistic picture cannot be presented in short sound bites.

Lowest cost doesn't matter if it is also the lowest revenue generating hub.
Haven't run the numbers, but based off everything else I've seen from evaluating US's international network, if their domestic nonstop flights are relying on 70-80% connections, it's not generating the same revenue that AA's pulling off at DFW or MIA.
I've noticed a fair percentage of double connects as well going XXX-CLT-PHX-YYY and reverse; if those are now able to be better managed or timed via a single connect at DFW or ORD, why would anyone double connect?
I know that the conventional wisdom might be "to the victor goes the spoils" but this time, I'm not so sure that's going to be the way it pans out.
US's pre-HP merger strength was what they had at DCA & LGA. Now it's what's at DCA and what's able to be combined with what AA still has at LGA.
24 months from now, we can revisit this thread. By then, it will be apparent if CLT will go the way of DAY, RDU, PIT, BNA, MEM, CVG, CLE, STL, MKE, and MCI --- former airline hubs that simply didn't have enough of the local market to sustain it, and were easy to bypass via stronger hubs.

Completely correct.
CLT is overhubbed, as are all of US’ hubs which have higher percentages of connecting traffic than other hubs. Add in that US has a higher percentage of traffic on RJs, and their hubs will not necessarily be economical, esp. given that their major SE competitor is shifting a significant amount of capacity to mainline jets. US/AA will be competing in the SE against mainline aircraft operated by their major east coast competitor at lower costs.
Add in that there are duplications between AA and US’ network and the likelihood of US hubs growing is slim.

I will actually agree with that one. I also would be very surprised if a 3 billion profit comes through. At the same time this BK has had so many twist and turns in uncharted waters that it could turn out very good or go very bad from here. Time will tell. Remember that American was king of the hill back in the late 80's and early 90's. Then they fell from grace. Same thing can happen to any carrier again.

The principal remains that business is quite predictable. Where AA is now was predictable years ago and I spoke to the challenges AA faced.
Add in that AA/US is still not even approved and other carriers have initiated significant strategic initiatives that target the advantages AA/US would have gained, and predicting success is far from safe at this point.
And remember that other carriers already are starting from a better position financially and there really are no realistic expectations that they will stumble – or at least Wall Street hasn’t identified them.

 

[1AA]

That is what sucks about the TWU. They make decisions in our best interest. Although you wonder whos best interest it really is. Watch the profits roll in the next few years and we will be sidelined in collecting the rewards of our sacrifices. Thank you TWU.
Had enough yet? Time to get rid of these A$$ holes for good!!

 

[737823]

No one in the Northeast, Midwest or West is gonna connect in MIA, CLT and MIA offer two totally different options.

RDU and BNA couldnt compete with CLT or ATL.

You are delusional if you don't think CLT will be impacted negatively by the merger. MIA is a much better and more strategic market to serve. If these travelers to places like Asheville NC, Richmond VA, etc were so valuable why has AA gotten on so far just fine without serving them? I live in BOS and connect in MIA; it's convenient for me and I enjoy spending time in Miami, Charlotte not so much.

Josh

 

[700UW]

Just fine?

Billions in losses and chapter 11, mean anything to you?

Guess your banking career isn't going well?

I guess you would fly to MIA to go to say RIC which by the way AA does fly to RIC

 

[CactUSmx]

Josh knows everything. ...Everyone else is wrong... He likes to stir the pot. Population in Miami is maxed out. CLT is still growing. Miami is not going anywhere and neither is Charlotte....They both cater to different kind of people. We need both.

 

[AMFAinMIAMI]

Alright here is the almighty stock clerk and his buddy Josh who know all about the airline industry.

Bankruptcy proceedures, Contract negotiations, union seniority intergration, which union AA mechanics should have, why we should support his IAM and NOT AMFA, flight schedules, main base maintenance hubs, OH BUT lets not forget the most important thing ladies and gentleman, 700UW is good at running to the printer to get copies and distributing those copies. He did all of these on his stock clerk pay and did not take any money from the IAM.

He was an IAM communicator.

AMFA at AAin 2013

 

[eolesen]

#22 CSA Charlotte might be growing, but it's still a smaller metro area than #21 Sacramento, #20 Pittsburg, #19 St. Louis and #18 Orlando...

How many of those cities have sustainable airline hub operations? Two of them **had** hubs.