Its difficult, no, even impossible, to argue with the facts according to gleff:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Frankly, I think UA *should* declare bankruptcy rather than futily spending down its remaining resources in an attempt to avoid it.
They have to turn around the business, period</font>
But this is Chicago politics.
At its best, I should add.
And Boeing entered the fray in Chicago. Siding with UA. Boeing is a loser here too.
So waiting (and threatening with bankruptcy), and foot dragging is the name of the game. The goal is to get the federal loan guatantee and House Speaker Hasstert is on the side of UA and Boeing.
They all bid for time:
Every player has a job to do in his house. No one is eager to throw to the streets tens of thousands furloughed or layed off UA and Boeing employees. The economy is not exactly booming. There are presidential elections coming up in 23 months.... Multi-lateral deals have to be worked out behind closed doors... Chicago and Illinois have gone Democrate. The Democrats want to cooperate too. Need to win favor of the unions. Mayor Daley wants a big shiny attractive city. He likes federal dollars coming in too. He learned it from his dad that federal dollars are good for the city.
He is not a loser. Never was.
The outcome will be lukewarm compromise. May be chapter 11 too, with some restructuring. May be just restructuring:
Tilton is no Iaccoca. He is not a CEO of big vision. All he tries to do is keep his house intact. So does Phil Condit. Foot dragging, cajolling, lobbying, threatening, leaking to the media, is part of the process.
Fireworks are not in the planning. Its a long and tedious process. Boring.
I still sit on over 300K UA miles. No rush to go anywhere.
[This message has been edited by Intrepid (edited 11-15-2002).]