If AA goes backrupt, what will happen to frequent flier mileage? Perhaps US Air provides an answer? Were frequent flier miles honored?

They will be fine (the miles).

While it is true that some airlines that shut down (Ansett Australia come to mind) had their miles/point go up in thin air, I think any major USA carrier should be fine.

I agree. I think that AA miles will be safe if AA declares bankruptcy. However, count on the value of the miles to go down with every airline. They are all changing the programs for the worse.

The Debtor in Possession question makes it interesting.

See discussion at http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum71/HTML/015129.html

If AA vanishes, will AA miles have any value?

------------------
Middle_Seat

AA (or any other airline) going Chapter 11: AA miles will still be honoured, but I would expect (true for all frequent flier programs/-miles at this difficult airline industry times) more devalutaion of miles (more miles needed for awards, less and more restrictive avilability for awards and upgrades).

AA (or any other airline) going chapter 7:
There is no legal obligation to honour any tickets issued by an airline or that airline's frequent flier program (ticket stock of that airline) after chapter 7.

Even when AN went bankrupt, SQ/AZ and other *-carriers were very reluctant (and did let more than a week go by) until they decided to honour (for goodwill reason, no legal obligation) tickets that were already booked/confirmed with them.

Unfortunately a bankruptcy of UA or AA or DL (or their ff-programs) would be of such a big dimension, that other carriers could probably not help you/us out, the financial loss for them would be intolerable. (There is currently still an obligation for US-carriers to honourinner-US-flight. tickets of another bankrupt US-carrier for a fee of US$25 ... as long as space is available ...).

Perhaps one might see any one of the 17,366 postings on the UA board on exactly the same subject, or the 7,717 posts on the US board.

The answer is pretty much the same.

As much as I believe in the free market system, I really don't see the U.S. government letting all the majors declare ch. 11. Can you imagine the furthur devastation to the U.S. economy?

We could end up with a government run national carrier as in many countries. AmAir?



[This message has been edited by Neal (edited 03-12-2003).]

Just shoot me. All the efficiency of the TSA with the service mentality of the DEA.

It's acutally ConAir and the hub is in TUL. Their service is not significantly worse than what we're seeing lately.

[This message has been edited by bollar (edited 03-12-2003).]

If the hub is in TUL, one thing is for **** sure - the pilots will be ARMED to the teeth.

We love our guns around here

Yeah, it's a good program:

More Room Throughout Coach than AA.
A security screening that actually works.
An empty seat next to each passenger.
Meals on every flight.

And the FAs have shotguns and the pilots are armed, so you can rest assured that you'll be safe.

however, they only offer one-way tickets

Or bring back Air America?

Why is it necessarily such a bad thing if most of the US majors end up declaring Chapter 11? The experience of Southwest and other low-fare carriers demonstrates that the US is in no danger of losing a critical part of its transportation infrastructure; it just so happens that [arguably] the business model employed by the largest US companies is flawed. Chapter 11 is designed to allow companies to restructure and to become viable without disappearing from the marketplace altogether, and USAirways demonstrates that the market is willing to support such restructurings, and CO and HP have successfully gone through the processes in the past and emerged as viable businesses. While a number of Chapter 11 filings by the US majors might be politically intoleable, from a business and economic sense it might even be a good thing, by forcing a restructuring of uneconomic business practices and cost structures. The only time it might become problematic is significant parts of the US were to be in danger of losing reasonably-priced commercial air service--though recent history suggests that entry into the industry is not particularly difficult, such that underserved regions may rather quickly see service by a new start-up even in the event of withdrawal of service by the majors. This situation differs from the rail industry, in which the US was in danger of losing service altogether and the barriers to entry were much higher (i.e. track).