Originally Posted by
OrangeRange
When they start making multi-year losses, perhaps. Now? I wouldn't say so. AA has many strengths it can play with the right leadership: formidable JV & OW partners flying in JFK/LAX, DFW & CLT money printers, largest number of gates at LAX, dominant position in MIA/largest airline in South Florida, still a very large #2 competitor at ORD, etc.
They need a vision and the ULCC mindset of "the network is the product" is played out. FAs got a new contract with pre-boarding pay, why aren't they being held to a standard to perform the customer service aspect of their jobs? AA's fixed costs are too high to let standards lapse and to chase after Frontier/Spirit/Southwest clientele. At least Kirby admitted in the interview on Airlines Confidential that he was wrong and adjusted accordingly after he came to United. I will say the FAs and other frontline staff likely have their hands tied with inconsistent messaging from leadership, and definitely don't have a product they can be proud to serve to customers.
IMO consistently improving BOB options, retrofitting the domestic narrowbody fleet with the new 321XLR design/ all the 787s with flagship suites for hard product commonality across the fleet, and updating all ACs and flagship lounges to the new DCA/LGA/PHL designs would go a long way to help remain competitive in key markets.
Network-wise, AA is going to continue to lag in widebodies for years vs. UA/DL, but I'm not so sure international premium will continue to be red-hot forever. Eventually growth and yields will drop as Asian carriers are able to buff up their fleets as well and dump capacity into the market, and TATL to Europe is already saturated. I'd say AA's conservative approach to bringing on additional 787s while debt is paid down is a good thing. Being late to the party with a massive order of new, expensive widebodies would be fatal. Leverage the partnership with Alaska in SEA as they grow it into a global hub, use the XLR fleet to open secondary European markets/maintain year-round service to key business markets, and strategically target Asian markets from LAX after T4/T5 renos are completed.
The ship isn't going to be turned overnight. This will all easily take 5-10 years to complete, but it's needed.
I'd second all of this. AA isn't in as bad shape as I think we (at least many of us) and Kirby think. There are a lot of strong parts they've lucked into or have from previous, less bad leadership. They could turn things around in 5 years and be competitive with DL and UA in 10. But, that does require the board and C-suite doing something about it. It does seem if they don't do something, they'll start to fall so far behind that in 5-10 years they'll truly be boxed in and have a hard time recovering.
Two things I think have been highlighted but need emphasizing:
1. I've had the best soft product flying and the worst. The inconsistency in service is their biggest problem. Like, many on here, I flew over 80 segments on AA last year, and am at over 50 this year. About 1/3 of the flights are some of the best service I get. About 1/2 are neither good nor bad. But that remaining portion are truly, truly terrible experiences. They need to raise the bottom up and then push for consistency.
2. There's reason to possibly be optimistic - Nat Pieper brings a unique perspective from his time at Oneworld about how actually decent airlines run. If Isom actually lets him implement changes, like he did Vasu, we might start to see more careful, forward thinking changes. Or at least changes that stop the bleeding and turn AA in the right direction.