I've always doubted it which is why I used "rumored" and "allegedly", but it's stated as fact round here that domestic is bad, international is good. The counter argument I've used is to point to Southwest and their history of profitability and dividends, about which AA can only dream.

I wonder if the argument is actually one about the hub & spoke v. point to point systems? It must be incredibly hard for the legacies to be competitive with B6 and others flying me AUS-SFO if they have to take me via a hub and have me occupy a seat for nearly double the time. If they can only get the same number of dollars for the trip they're always on the back foot, so maybe what I'm arguing is that AA should only serve hub-hub and hub-very major revenue generating city, and abandon the rest to a friendly point-to-point operation?