Union Leaders have become too savvy to the Siegel/Glass M of O. Siegel’s tricks are designed to merely claim a moral Executive High Ground. The Strategy of the “Plan” is a disguise for the lack of Executive innovative talent and the inability to anticipate and adapt to an industry evolution. Managements plan is simply, to sustain the higher cost of network operations by either paying employees less than their low-cost rivals (in order to compensate for the inequity of business models); or, to have the employees work more hours than their low-cost rivals for the same or less compensation – which is also a pay cut. According to Management's (Glass) M.O., the Plan comes in a two part strategy.
Unfortunately, US Airways has six months or so to maintain liquidity and avoid breaking specific covenents of the ATSB loan. There are very few individuals who would be able to step into the CEO position of US Airways and have even a fighting chance of averting this June ATSB covenent issue.
Somebody recently noted that Lamar Muse offered to head up AMR publicly in a DFW news paper. Other notables who might be available on short notice include Herb Kelleher, Greg Brennamen (I may have misspelled, he was CO's #2 for the Go Forward Plan), Robert Crandall. And that is the list of people who I think are 1) available 2) have even a small chance of success at this stage of the game. I don't think any of these people are willing to try given the huge risk of failure when they were all considered successful.
I think just about anybody else would end up wasting a lot of the next six months learning the industry and the company... This is time US Airways cannot afford to lose, even if Seigel isn't the wonderkind he was supposed to be when hired.
That is the problem... Not that US doesn't need new leadership, that US doesn't have time for new leadership to be successful.
When Seigel was announced as the new CEO, I expected something like the Go Forward Plan to be announced within months... A clear, simple vision + carte blanche to make every change necessary in order to accomplish that goal. In fact, I thought that was the brilliance in hiring somebody who helped engineer CO's turnaround. It seemed to me like the US Airways BOD read "From Worst to First" and intended to repeat Bethune's recipe... Even hired as CEO somebody from Bethune's team!
Either Seigel's hands were tied by the BOD and contracts with regards to what he could accomplish, or he didn't act fast enough, or didn't have a plan. It appears to me to be a bit of all three. While its a shame, US Airways problems did not begin with Seigel, or even Wolf + Gangwal, but these last two leadership teams have not had very much success in reversing the trends...
