FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Qatar Airways nixes plan to buy 10% stake in American Airlines
Old Aug 3, 2017, 9:35 pm
  #34  
DA201
 
Join Date: Sep 2015
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Posts: 875
Originally Posted by leungy18
Profitable? Really?

American lost $20 million on that route in 2014 alone. In the summer of 2014 there was a seven-week war between the IDF and Hamas...tourism was probably hit hard.

It's hard to justify keeping a route with 8-fig losses to shareholders.
I heard the profitability thing was a load of garbage. Apparently, AA had some dispute with some employees or former employees in Israel from when they flew JFK-TLV (inherited from TWA, later cancelled for apparently the same reason). So it was cheaper and easier for AA to cancel the flight right after acquiring US instead of going through a potentially expensive legal battle in Israel.

Back to the topic of the thread... I think QR realized there was no chance of improving ties with AA and that their proposed investment only made their existing relationship worse. AA wants to keep their employees happy and all of the unions hate the ME3, so Parker's popularity among employees went up after he openly commented on their proposed investment and scaled back ties with EY and QR.
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