Tha's why the good ones like Anderson and Brenneman get out while the going is good.
Anyone who sticks around does so because they have a huge equity stake attached to the survival of their company. Once that equity stake has reached it's maxium potential, why hang around?
That's
exactly what he's doing, and can you blame him? If you think for one second that
ALL the legacy carriers are going to escape bankruptcy in the next 2 or 3 years, you're smoking some serious foliage that you should share with the rest of us...
There's no way for Northwest, Continental, AA, etc to compete with a USAirways (if they survive round 2), United, and Delta with the
HUGE concession packages they'll be getting. The other carriers will keep bleeding red since they'll have to price match to retain their market share with labor costs twice that of the bankrupt carriers, and eventually they too will fall to the Chapter 11 wolves already nipping at their heels.
Anderson is doing what he's done all along: play it
VERY SMART. No one wants to be known as the CEO that took a once healthy airline into bankruptcy, good positions are
MUCH harder to get after that, even for "fat cat" Harvard grad CEO's. I'm certain his new position, although a step "down" in title, pays much better (look at the profit margin in the medical field versus aviation), has better bennies (not to mention stock options that are actually
WORTH something), and lets him bail while, as the previous poster mentioned, "the getting is good".
Wouldn't be a bit surprised to see Gordon pulling the same move sometime in the next year... It's gonna be a rough decade!
