Question becomes: What is the BOD looking for in a replacement:
1. Someone who will make peace with labor (not sure that is possible in the current economic environment without giving away the store - Crandall, Horton wrote extensively on the subject).
2. Improve operational efficiency (see
#1 above)
3. Reduce costs (see
#1 above)
At the end of the day, I believe it all comes back to good labor relations - something AA has struggled with for more than 30 years; other than allowing the inmates to take over the asylum, changing leadership at this stage may be little more than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Waiting until the next economic downturn, bringing on someone like Horton to take the company back through Chapter 11 may be the only real solution.