Somebody's getting defensive now that AA is more profitable. Great spin.
no, I am not defensive.
you probably missed it but there were times when US had a higher profit margin than DL.
at the time, you were happy to note that US achieved its financial success on the backs of its employees who were paid below average wages.
now that it is AA employees who are paid less than DL, UA, and WN, it is impossible for you to see that fact.
AA was the only airline that didn't pay any profit sharing and AA's salary and benefits expense per employee was lower that either of the big 4.
Actually a profitable company benefits employees by allowing them to invest in the product and in fleet renewal with actual modern aircraft for the first time in a long time
and I can assure you that employees over time could care less how profitable a company is or how great the product is if they make less than their peers at comparable companies.
The bottom line here is that AA has not even started restructuring the route system and aircraft usage to the merger. To postulate that Latin America is Failing and will continue to fall is preposterous. Major changes will not ocur until 2015 and continue through 2016. Some people on here seem to think that Parker could just come in, wave a magic wand and overnight produce a highly efficient and near perfect merged airline. Personally, I would have preferred this quarter show an Overall Loss, so that absurd 3 year DOT agreement regarding (certain) Hub sizes could be eliminated/relieved. IMO, there will be a significant restructuring of aircraft type/configuration/schedules for Latin America (and elsewhere) during 2015/2016.
Really, who has any interest weather DL or UA perform better today in certain regions. You can bet, Parker/Kirby are concentrated on profitability and not chasing DL. The 3 US majors will have to live together, or they will fail in the long run, as there will likely be zero new mergers (among them) approved by the DOJ. I would not be surprised to see the existing merged AMR network radically reduced in the future to maximize profitability. Let pompus DL be the biggest and AMR the most profitable - I'll laugh all the way to the bank.
I haven't said that Latin America is in a continuous downward spiral. It is a real crisis for which the end is not apparent and AA's Latin America RASM drop was far worse than any other carrier which is very significant given AA's size in the region.
and yes AA has revenue upside, esp. around a restructured route system.... but that also means that there will be things that get cut. DL, UA, and WN have all done it but yet far too many fans on here think that AA can reach those revenue improvements without doing what the other big 3 had to do to reach where they are with respect to revenue.
and the real issue is not as much that revenue will come later but that costs will rise now because labor could care less that mgmt. doesn't have the tools to get the revenue maximized.
labor costs increasing before revenue synergies is a big red flag... and as much as you all want to think you are different, it is precisely what UA did.
AA's RASM growth was the weakest of the big 3 and Latin America was only a part of the problem.
AA underperformed the industry even in the domestic arena.
I see you made up a new metric / parameter.
Interestingly, I don't think it is reported on the SEC statements, for example.
But hey, whatever validates your DL uber alles narrative.
Some people just don't want to admit that.
Instead, when this is pointed out to them, they will start to write diatribes about how s l o w the AA/US system integration is going.
no, revenue per fuel burned and passengers carried per fuel burned are not made up statistics. They are a measure of how well a carrier uses its assets.
most calculated statistics are not reported to the SEC but rather calculated.
there are all kinds of statistics such as revenue and passengers per employee that are calculated measures of efficiency that are derived from published statistics.