G4G5 said:Mugs]
It cracks me up when people hide behind the LCC excuse. Take a close look at Airtran, they have a 10.5% B fund. How do you explain that?
No it's pretty clear that you are hiding behind the, "it would have happened anyway" excuse. If that's the case then how do you explain AMR and CAL making their pension payments? It has nothing to do with, it would have happened any and everything to do with poor mgt.
Airtran has a good "B"-fund, but of course there is no A-plan at all. Even UAL still has 9% going to the B, which is supposed to go to 15% post-CH11. When you consider the enormous debt levels at both AMR and CAL and what they will be competeing against with or without UAL, do you really believe the pensions at both companies will be viable for the long run? Speaking of Airtran, they have torn apart Delta in their own backyard. Is UAL to blame for that too?
Maybe that is why AMR is so spooked by talk of the repeal of the Wright Amendment. Losing the revenue premium in Dallas, as Delta did in Atlanta, could have dire consequences for yet another debt laiden legacy carrier. If you find it more conveinent to blame having to compete with UAL and its new cost structure, fine. Just keep in mind that it is just the thing you would have wound up competeing against eventually even if UAL had shut down back in 2002.