Originally Posted by HeathrowGuy

I agree that CO has been playing it somewhat conservatively over the past few years, but that isn't a bad thing to the extent it's still in somewhat better shape than most of its peers, and ironically now retains more flexibility than its peers to adapt its business model during the downturn as a result.

Delta is up to its eyeballs in debt and now will be spending the exorbitant sums necessary to physically merge NW into its ops, a process that invariably leads to inattention to product quality and operational performance, to say nothing of imposing constraints on how the airline can tweak its network because of the promises made during and after the merger process. AA and US lack the capital to do much more than keep shrinking. United has some room for improvement, and is doing just that, and should get somewhat better for the near term as some of CO's practices rub off on it, but is still saddled with all sorts of looming problems to its cost and revenue infrastructures.