Originally Posted by
Col Ronson
The management goal at AA is to make AA an airline people want to fly. The strategy is to invest in the product to improve the airline, instead of cutting costs. They are literally laughing their socks off right now at the mess UA is in. And hey guess what, its working for them. AA/US is making money 1 year after their merger while 3 years later into the UA/CO merger its a riot-fest.
New AA is cutting back on AA's generous domestic F meal policy and marginally improving the very miserly US meal policy.
To be fair, AA and US have earned $1.9 billion for the first half of 2014 (excl special items) but the airlines themselves haven't yet merged. The corporate merger closed on Dec 9, 2013. Both airlines were very profitable in 2013 before the merger.
Originally Posted by
Col Ronson
Case in point. new IFE systems are being sourced to be installed on the US A319s/A321s to bring them up to par with the AA A319 deliveries. Meanwhile on UA, its still IFE roulette. You will get something, and you better be grateful for it.
I don't believe that's accurate. No plans have been announced to add IFE to premerger existing US Airbus single-aisle planes, but if you have a link to a source, I'd love to read it.