ACA Its Airbus

[Andy]

ACA will definitely burn through cash and post a projected loss for some quarters, but I don't believe they projected 300M. Who knows I don't feel like crunching the numbers. If the economy turns the corner the timing could be right.

Problem is, UAL isn't going to sit back and let Independence Air operate with impugnity. Read a bit about how AMR took down Legend Air out of DAL (that's Dallas Love Field). Independence Air can expect the exact same fate.
In October, UAL was cash flow positive by $7 million/day. UAL could do a LOT of damage to Independence Air with an extra $7 mil/day burning a hole in their pockets. ... Independence, meet Ted. I'll wager that, should ACAI ever fly as Independence, Ted will put them out of business.

 

[KingAirKiddo]

Problem is, it's the ACAI shareholders who decide whether or not to accept JO's offer. If I were a betting man, I'd be willing to bet that if less than 50% of current shareholders are in favor of JO's tender offer, JO will be buying up shares of ACAI. Does ACAI have a poison pill? What happens if JO buys >15% of ACAI stock?

Let the deal go through....I guarantee you that airplanes will start flying very slowly, checklists will take a long time to run, airplanes will be flown in strict accordance with all MEL's and CDL's, Captains will start exercising extremely conservative discretion, etc.

Bottom line is that this deal is not good for ACAI, Mesa, OR UAL. This is a case of Jonathan Ornstein's ego run amuck and nothing more.

 

[w4mch]

Andy,

I'm not worried about Ted. If ted wants to fly busses to all the cities we go to in the CRJs, fine, let'em come. After renting out half the terminal to support 1 to 2 flights a day out of SYR or GSP, plus flying a bird that is way too big to support those markets they will wonder where that whopping $7M went. If they put UAX in those cities to compete with us it will be even better. They will have to pay the UAX carrier it's margin, find a place to park them at IAD and bleed even more.

As for the independence bus cities, if they want to price themselves to match us, fine again. All they will be doing is giving away seats and bleeding more red ink. UAL needs to figure out how to turn a profit AND pay back some of their debt.

I'm sure they will compete with us. We're banking on it. Competing with uniTED will be easy, and we would hope they stay around long enough to keep anyone else from growing at IAD.

 

[Marko Ramius]

Let the deal go through....I guarantee you that airplanes will start flying very slowly, checklists will take a long time to run, airplanes will be flown in strict accordance with all MEL's and CDL's, Captains will start exercising extremely conservative discretion, etc.

Bottom line is that this deal is not good for ACAI, Mesa, OR UAL. This is a case of Jonathan Ornstein's ego run amuck and nothing more.

Do you think JO cares one bit? No website, fist shaking, or sabre-rattling threats by his would be employees is going to make him stop his attempts to buy you. Plus I'll do you one better, if it does go down the majority of employees will do their jobs largely the same over the long run. A cursory glance of merger/acquisition history over time will tell you that.

 

[w4mch]

Marco,
You may be right about our www.aero2003.org site affecting JO, but forcing a full seniority intergration and bump & flush bid will make him bleed some.

Having to wait for the court case to slowly come up on the federal docket and face sherman & clayton act charges will put a stick in his spokes as well.

Does UAL really want to this dingy tied to them while they are trying to get an ATSB loan? Oops, they are named in the suit as well! Imagine that...

Waiting for the next act to start, the popcorn is just about ready and the beer is cold...

 

[RJPilott]

God i love being part of the largest carrier in the Washington DC area.... especially when we are about to offer low fares...

 

[AirBoard]

Problem is, it's the ACAI shareholders who decide whether or not to accept JO's offer. If I were a betting man, I'd be willing to bet that if less than 50% of current shareholders are in favor of JO's tender offer, JO will be buying up shares of ACAI. Does ACAI have a poison pill? What happens if JO buys >15% of ACAI stock?

Andy,

It's not that easy. If JO could go out and buy stock in ACAI now to solidify his chance of a hostile takeover this thing would be over. Unfortunately, when the takeover was announced a set date for shareholders of record was announced of Oct 23. Meaning, if you owned shares on that date you get to vote for ACA's future. Now JO could have ammased some shares prior to the record but not enoughto make a diffrence. He needs to get to the institutional investors.

BTW, your comment about how UAL can use it's positive cash flow to essentially crush INDY AIR reminds me what AA's Pres said recently. Word to the wise.....'you can't fix a 700 plane operation by changing the way you fly 40 planes' Ouch, that makes sense.

As far as a poison pill, I believe in this case it's called shark repellant and it is a commitmment to purchase 25 Airbusses. Deal worth over $1B. And I'm sure our company structured it so our tidy little cash reserve will be gone should JO get his grubby hands on us. Sorry JO.

 

[AirBoard]

Do you think JO cares one bit? No website, fist shaking, or sabre-rattling threats by his would be employees is going to make him stop his attempts to buy you. Plus I'll do you one better, if it does go down the majority of employees will do their jobs largely the same over the long run. A cursory glance of merger/acquisition history over time will tell you that.

I'd rather fight than give in to this pilot morale basher, wouldn't you?!?!