Originally Posted by
sfoeuroflyer
This is of course a tragedy for the shareholders who get wiped out, but for those who fly the airline it is good news.
Bluntly put AA is being killed by its employees. Truly the inmates have been in charge of the asylum. Inefficient work rules, unsustainable wage/retirement/health packages killed AA. Its labor costs are much higher than its competitors. Bankruptcy offers solutions that thick headed union goons would not otherwise accept.
In the same way that US autos were made complete crap by the unions (all those cheap plastic interiors could have been called "UAW interiors"), the stupid cutbacks in the quality of service on AA were driven by the unions. We the passengers suffered because of them.
Now if only there were bankruptcy solutions for Federal, State and Local employee unions.
Plenty of blame to go around. it is not all the union's fault. Senior AA managment and the board have made some horrible decisions. Not investing in new planes when they had the chance, thinking LCC's and high oil prices were going to go away, poisioning the well with the unions though a horribly thought out management incentive program that oozed bad optics, not doing anything about the entrenched/siloed bureaucracy in mid-management, and finally NOT INVESTING IN IT. AA's crew scheduling, maintenance scheduling, and even it's revenue mngmt (which was always the gold standard in the industry and everyone emulated) system were antiquied and just recently have been being upgraded according to two conractors I have working for me that recently jumped the AA ship. According to them AA was pennywise and pound foolsh when it came to IT.