Originally Posted by
boss315
There seems to be a real difference between these two cultures.. Thoughts/observations?
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Rather than culture it comes down to product and who is willing to pay for what level of product. If one is not insanely biased, one can clearly see that pmUS was a very downmarket product and priced (and thus frequented by) a different segment of fliers
Now, we all want to be politically correct and not flame anyone, and thus we all keep silent but we can all see how far pmAA has fallen and (even worse) how much further it is going to fall.
There will be no happy mediums here. The new AA will end up looking just like pmUS. It is just being done in stages. The final goal of the pmUS leadership is to FULLY CONVERT pmAA into pmUS. As a simple example look at what is happening with the 772 refit. After the first batch is done with a higher number of J, the next batch will have a lower number of J and then even the first batch will be retrofitted to remove J!
In a perfect world pmAA would have merged with pmCO and would have had a broadly similar set of products. pmAA would still have been superior (due to the availability of Premium First) but the harmonization would have been easier. Also, then the newAA would have ruled Texas
Whether one wants to admit it or not, pmAA was the most premium airline in the US. pmUA, pmDL, pmNW, pmCO were all far behind and pmUS was not even considered a "real airline" ... just a collection of shaky and rattling old planes held together by desperation..