Point taken re: grammar and spelling. Mostly I mentioned it because I had to read that sentence three times before I figured out what she was trying to say. Sorta turned into a jumble. Nonetheless, you're right...it was over the line.
As to my background, I guess I began my interest in commercial aviation around the age of four, when my dad took me on a TWA flight from PHX to SAN. I loved everything about it, though naturally at that age the business aspects meant nothing to me. I was very interested in the deregulation story as it began to unfold...I followed the stories about Braniff, People Express, New York Air, America West, Texas International, Eastern, the PATCO strike and subsequent ATC capacity issues (not to mention the horrendously outdated technology they still use). I wrote a report in high school on some of the dangers in aviation that weren't being addressed.
In college, I got a degree in aerospace engineering, with the intention of going to work at Boeing's CAG. At the time I was dating someone whose brother was (and might still be) an airline mechanic. Many of his friends were rampers. We discussed the business quite a bit.
Along the way, my parallel interest in software led me into that industry (I had a better offer than Boeing). My job required significant air travel, and I had many conversations with GAs and flight crew about their perspectives on the industry. I also had the opportunity to meet with some airline execs for business, and got to talk with them about the industry as well.
When the economy turned, I was laid off. It seemed like a good time to further my education, so I'm getting what one could call a technical MBA, covering both business and computer technology...though I'm focusing much more on the business.
While here, I've had the pleasure of doing some research with some people very closely tied to airline deregulation. My most recent work was updating a paper written in the late 80s that described the monopolistic behaviors of airline hubs. The research I've done suggests that the hubs have shifted from monopolies to oligopolies. Interestingly, and to my surprise, it seems the biggest force leading to that shift was not the expansion of the LCCs, but rather the removal of slots. The LCCs, having had no monopolies from which to pick up revenue, were well-positioned to take advantage of the new opportunities.
So, given the long interest I've had in the industry, I have begun applying to jobs at a handful of airlines (among other fields).
My interest in US is not really greater than that of other airlines. There's more traffic here, mostly. 🙂
I posted quite a bit in the UA section back in the PlaneBusiness days. At the time, I was mostly posting in the threads where UA employees were talking about how the boom was going to go on forever, and UA was invincible. I kept commenting that the business was about to go through some major deflation, and that UA was one of the most poorly positioned to survive it.
Back then, most of the talk in the US board was about how awful Wolf/Gang was, with some speculation that the company was being cleaned up to merge with UA. That one almost happened...can you imagine how bad the fall would have been?
