That was my reaction to this comment as well. AA management definitely should not get the benefit of the doubt on fleet or route planning decisions. Their list of bungles is really quite extraordinary.

The continued rollout of aircraft with minimal MCE is just baffling. This is a huge differentiator for UA, which becomes ever more important as upgrades decline and road warriors increasingly must settle for sitting in back. I assume this dates all the way back to AA's failed experiment with MRTC 20+ years ago. Seems they learned the wrong lesson there.