I would say this is good marking on Kirby's part. As a very heavy traveler and spender on airlines, AA is far from cooked. Could AA do better? Certainly. But they are doing a lot of good things for premium travelers like myself. At the end of day, DL = UA = AA for the most part, and the hubs are key to a captive audience.

The other consideration is I personally like One World alliance quite a bit, maybe more than Star Alliance. One World has some quite strong airlines and routes, that work really well for me, than the Star Alliance when I was top tier on that.

AA needs to continue to modernize the fleet and offer more premium seats, which will yield even more competitiveness.