American and US Air - why???????

[xjhawk]

US Airways cannot get its own house in order, how can it think to take on the divided house of AA? Oh.....the union leaders and the positions they hold will most likely be getting huge payoffs....I mean contractual pay raises. "From this Seniority number and up (just by chance it is the most Jr of the senior union reps) will keep this much of their defined pension and everyone gets a pay raise......psssst, and we furlough those junior 20% (but they don't matter).

Another merger to ruin future hiring.....................more layoffs

 

[shon7]

reminds me of TWA deal where the unions "preferred" Icahn over Lorenzo. Presumably they are hoping for things to turn out as well as they did that time. Oh wait. Nevermind.

 

[Daddy]

You guys need to stop thinking from a labor perspective and start thinking from a business perspective. Merging these two is good for everyone in this business. Primarily it reduces competition and gives pricing power to EVERYONE. Not so good for the airline consumer. It also prevents further collapse of wages for us laborers. This is a good deal...let's hope it happens.

 

[aa73]

Simple... AA cannot survive on its own. USAir cannot survive on its own. The two airlines combined will not only survive but be a formidable competitor to DAL/UAL.

 

[Muskycat]

Because some guys in back rooms on Wall St. you never heard of who control Billions of $ are going to make a quick $ out of the deal, get out, and leave the employees to deal with the resultant mess.

Doesn't matter a lick whether it makes sense in terms of routes, fleets, hubs, unions, contracts, the Nic., USAPA, APA, etc....

BINGO!!
There are a bunch of lorenzo's standing behind DP licking their chops.
AA pilot group is crazy for going along with this. Maybe they're trying to piss off their management but playing with fire is not a good idea. Never make a decision based on spite.

 

[Scoot 11]

US Airways cannot get its own house in order, how can it think to take on the divided house of AA? Oh.....the union leaders and the positions they hold will most likely be getting huge payoffs....I mean contractual pay raises. "From this Seniority number and up (just by chance it is the most Jr of the senior union reps) will keep this much of their defined pension and everyone gets a pay raise......psssst, and we furlough those junior 20% (but they don't matter).

Another merger to ruin future hiring.....................more layoffs

You make a very good point here. It's easy to try to work on another merger to take the spotlight off the current disaster known as US Airways. Parker is an amateur, trying to get into the spotlight, no matter what it takes.

JMHO...YMMV...

 

[Turtle21]

Why? Because DUI Parker wants to replace the aged and dilapidated AA MD80s with "younger" USAirways 737-400s. He has to find homes for the decrepid USAirways 737 fleet. At least that is my theory...

USAir only has 7 300s left that will be gone by the end of the year and about 40 400s that will be gone by the end of next year, all being replaced one for one with new A321s, just adding to what is already the largest (and youngest) Airbus fleet in the world.

 

[ackattacker]

You make a very good point here. It's easy to try to work on another merger to take the spotlight off the current disaster known as US Airways. Parker is an amateur, trying to get into the spotlight, no matter what it takes.

JMHO...YMMV...

US Airways is a labor disaster but as an airline it's doing pretty well. The USAPA mess is hardly Duggie's fault, that mess lies squarely at the feet of the pilots involved. All he's doing is taking advantage of the resulting cheap labor for as long as he can, which is exactly what a CEO is supposed to do.

Of course the labor problem is now actually a problem since he wants the merger to happen. Now that he wants the issue gone he'll just throw some money at it, as he could have done all along but had no incentive to do so. It looks like he has the unions and most of the creditors lined up behind him, an nobody has any faith in Horton at all. Prediction, this merger will go through and it will be overall good for most people involved.

 

[HalinTexas]

You guys need to stop thinking from a labor perspective and start thinking from a business perspective. Merging these two is good for everyone in this business. Primarily it reduces competition and gives pricing power to EVERYONE. Not so good for the airline consumer. It also prevents further collapse of wages for us laborers. This is a good deal...let's hope it happens.

LOL:laugh:

Impossible. Inconceivable.

As to the rest of the posts...

Of course, the millionaire, fat-cat union bosses are on board with this, but they only have the regular guy's best interest at heart, right?

Simple reason: Business. Grow or die. Market share. Pricing power.

Would you rather AMR furlough 13000 employees vs. 6000 as USAir is offering? Both numbers could go higher and probably will in either case.

Congress, BO, and Wall St. would love for this to happen. Have been urging consolidation for years.


Put away the class envy. It's doing nothing but destroying civilization.

 

[Flyby1206]

US Airways is a labor disaster but as an airline it's doing pretty well. The USAPA mess is hardly Duggie's fault, that mess lies squarely at the feet of the pilots involved. All he's doing is taking advantage of the resulting cheap labor for as long as he can, which is exactly what a CEO is supposed to do.

US Airways is doing well because of the labor disaster! If it werent for the ridiculously low payscales thanks to all the union in-fighting then US would be in serious trouble (arguably still in serious trouble even with the lowest labor CASM of any legacy). US Airways is basically a high cost regional LCC airline. The international presence is negligible and the network is east coast heavy. I would put jetblue and US Airways in the same category in terms of similar operations.