well you seem to like the fact that despite the hard working efforts of 400 flight crewmembers the results were not as good as we expected them to be. in addition, despite the hard working efforts of your 1500 pilots (who are actually told they ARE the reason for their success), they are still told how much they are worth with this TA.
1) I'm just standing on the sidelines looking in, ie not with AirTran.
2) I have been a fan of Midwest for years. I always loved the customer service and the people. Call me a nostalgia junkie, but I liked the fact that Midwest kept the bar high and tried to make air travel a pleasure, and not a pain. I had to fly AirTran quite often at an old job (b/c of schedule and route). I HATED going through ATL. I also hate going to WalMart at peak hours -- both places are insane!
3) Like many operations, the focus is on leadership. It’s the leadership at Midwest that seems to be faltering on the business side, and that of AirTran seems to have problems with rewarding their people for a job well done. At Midwest, there seems to be a lot that needs to be done, too. However, much of that requires cash. They have some reserve, but when you make less that $5M in Q2, it’s hard to do.
4) They didn’t do too good at fielding the questions after the report. It was similar to somebody testifying in front of Congress a repeating “I do not recall.” over and over again (“The board took no action”). The gal from Lightspeed might have been looking for a quick buck, but she did ask some valid questions. The style of the presentation and the Q&A session just didn’t seem to be a shining moment for MEH.
Part of me hopes the take over doesn’t go. I see AAI making Midwest the surviving carrier for the name and then drastically lowering the quality of customer service. On the other hand, I’d like to think I’m a practical man. In reality, it just doesn’t look good for the home team: the shares tendered, the drop in Q2 earnings, vague references to long term value/plan.
That’s all. Standing by for August 10….