MJonTravel

There's a limited amount of connectivity over RDU to/from LHR. I doubt its enough to matter, but it's there. Truth told, I don't remember a flight from DCA to RDU that an announcement hasn't been made regarding the gate to London for connecting passengers. And on my last return from RDU to DCA, there was a gentleman beside me who had flown in from LHR.

There is quite a bit of corporate traffic on that flight. Glaxo is the biggest, which I've already seen mentioned. Quite a few international businesses are located adjacent to RDU in the Research Triangle Park. I might be wrong, but I think that may play at least some role in why RDU has almost the same amount of O&D traffic as CLT from a much smaller population base....along with the presence of WN which gins up some traffic on its own.

AAir_head

An unscientific observation...

This morning on the ramp at DEN, I spotted something very odd...a 737 with an America West logo on the tail. It also had "U.S. Airways" painted along the top of the forward end of fuselage...now that was the "interim" scheme during the merger...how long ago was that?

Now maybe they just pulled that frame back into service from storage, but still...it's all US Air now and they didn't take the time to get it right...

Yeah...AA needs to be associated with an outfit like that...better they should start from scratch and build an operation to compete where they really need the market share. US will collapse of its own accord...

cheers!

MrPink

That might have been one of their celebratory legacy liveries. IIRC they have 4 of those planes, half decked out like one of their original 4 airlines and the rest in new US livery.

It was done post-US/HP merger, but it's primarily celebratory and doesn't cost them anything to keep, so I can't see why they would want to change it.

It's actually pretty cool, and one of the nicer touches of US to look back at their past like that. Too bad their present is too messy.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Yeah, I think it was one of these hokey our history and heritage ideas. Also, probably to try to develop some love between USAir and America West flight personnel, which doesn't seem like it has worked very well. I did a LAS/JFK USAir flight awhile back and the F FA acted like USAir FAs were the anti-christ. When I asked her is she was former USAir or America West she said that she was not "one of them" (refering to USAir FAs).

ashill

Was it this plane? US maintains one aircraft with a "heritage livery" from each of the previous companies.

There are plenty of good reasons for AA not to be associated with US, but I think this is actually a nice touch.

AAir_head

Definitely not the one on airliners.net; I didn't get a long look at it (or the tail #), but I don't think it was one of the other heritage liveries either--the tail was plain white with that sort-of rusty-red AW logo and no background. What was really odd was that paint looked very faded...and I'm sure I saw the 'rounded-triangle' nacelles of the 737's CFM-engines...

Do you mean the "heritage liveries"?

cheers!

MrPink

There's apparently a couple of the heritage liveries, though a faded logo does sound unattractive.

LoneStarMike

For anyone interested in the history of the BNA & RDU hubs you can go to the airline hubs page at departedflights.com

Number of Daily Departures at Airline Hubs
Over Multi-Year Periods

The following pages show the number of daily departures operated by airlines at various hubs and how those numbers changed over a period of years.

AA Nashville Hub 1991-1995

AA Raleigh/Durham Hub 1987-1995

ORDinaryJoe

Rumors start again

AMR-USAirways: The next airline merger?

ty97

I see an AA/B6 buyout/merger way before AA/US (but what do I know, I'm not a CEO of anything).

FWAAA

The jetBlue CFO resigned suddenly this week - which is usually an ominous sign at a public company, but B6 spun it as no big deal.

I can easily envision a purchase of B6 by AA once AA reduces its costs in Ch 11.

volvo99

Hardly. Companies change CFOs like socks. However, if B6 were to make a move such as a stock buyback, then that would be interesting. With LH about to unload their B6 stake, I'd watch out for some Texas Pacific Group/Gordon Bethune type outfit looking for "value opportunties" to sweep in.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Well, if AA goes into Chapter 11 I would certainly be willing to wager that Doug Parker will be coming to call on the Unsecured Creditors' Committee with a proposal in hand. I'm not so sure I'd we would see anyone from JetBlue with such a deal for creditors. AA does not really fit Jet Blue's business model. That said, I would anticipate more of a tie up in the future in code sharing and even B6 coming into OW.

C17PSGR

Sometimes being single is better than being married.

There are a couple of interesting girls (B6/AS) out there who like to flirt, but aren't interested in anything serious. AS likes DL and being independent. B6 is union free, even though it has a lot of furloughed AA pilots.

There's another girl out there who wants to get married very badly (US). But seriously ... different aircraft types, worse union relations than AA by far, an international hub in the same region as JFK, low cost O&D markets, and a route structure that just doesn't do much for AA apart from the Southeast that AA could deal with through RDU if it wanted.

This is a deal that only investment bankers could love. It would certainly put both into bankruptcy.

Organic growth and partnerships with B6 and AS are a much better option than merging with US. Lets see what happens with the new APA contract and the Eagle spinoff.

jaguar

No carrier is able to do a deal with AA until they go through bankruptcy.