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AA - US Merger Agreement / Announcement / DOJ Action Discussion (consolidated)

View Poll Results: My opinion of the announced AA - US merger is:
This is the best of all possible worlds; great idea!
33
3.93%
This portends a stronger airline, with some changes for all
192
22.88%
I am neutral - pros and cons for all
199
23.72%
I think this is a somewhat bad idea with some real challenges
226
26.94%
I am completely opposed to this merger; terrible idea!
189
22.53%
Voters: 839. You may not vote on this poll

AA - US Merger Agreement / Announcement / DOJ Action Discussion (consolidated)

 
Old Feb 15, 2013, 9:18 pm
  #706  
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Originally Posted by abk
I don't really know other than something that would let you know there was change in the air. As an aside I think the USair logo would look better on the tail of the new AA planes than what they have.
The two As would be better.
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 9:18 pm
  #707  
 
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Originally Posted by cdepks
Thought I'd try and get some input here (I am US but I guess we are all together now!), I fly PHL-IST, normally through FRA or MUC on LH or TK. Now, with OW it looks like I can only take BA through LHR. I looked on BA's site, looks like a charge for reserved seats (is this NK or what?). My quetion is, how is the service/connection (I've never been to LHR), etc. from some of you seasoned AA folks for service from PHL-IST? I appreciate any feedback, with this merger my biggest complaint (and to this day Doug never called for my opinion) is the move to OW from *A, thanks....
IB offers service from MAD to IST, AB flies from MUC to SAW in Istanbul.
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 10:49 pm
  #708  
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Originally Posted by Torgen
Edit: apparently they're renovating T3 first?
The old AA gates there are stripped down to structural steel. Looks like the terminal remodel is going to be a very slow process.
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 10:49 pm
  #709  
 
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Originally Posted by canyonleo
As a long-time EXP, I've been depressed all week. Just thinking of an EXP future that's anything similar to what 1k's have, or thinking of DL's FF program, has me sad all week.

It was nice while it lasted.

We're lucky EXP is so far above the current 1k that even with it becoming much worse, it will still be relatively competitive (with UA and DL, that is).
Originally Posted by becket5
Why not save all the doom and gloom until we actually know what the future program will look like. Life's too short to waste time being depressed about something that's an unknown.
Based on past mergers I think we all know that FF and elite benefits are going to be reduced. The only question is by how much.
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 10:51 pm
  #710  
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Originally Posted by AA_EXP09
The two As would be better.
^

Originally Posted by tom911
The old AA gates there are stripped down to structural steel. Looks like the terminal remodel is going to be a very slow process.
According to overview from SFO, it will be Fall 2013. Though that could always be pushed back.
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Old Feb 16, 2013, 7:06 am
  #711  
 
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Originally Posted by MetricFlyer
to get government support, AA-US should ask for DCA-LCY.
(on AA-US metal, as well as jointly on BA metal)
I think that would be fantastic result of the merger, but would the Babybus (or a similar aircraft) have the range? My regular meetings in downtown DC would suddenly be a lot more appealing! Now if only I could expense the connecting flight from EGLW…

Originally Posted by dcpatti
DCA does not have the immigrations facilities and while there can be pre-clearance done by stopping somewhere along the way, that blows the whole time/convenience factor of a nonstop right out of the water.
Not quite. BA has been doing just that since 29 September 2009, with a stop at SNN for refueling and pre-clearance on the all-J LCY to JFK route.

Originally Posted by dcpatti
LCY isn't a bad airport but why go there when you can go to IAD and have a true nonstop flight?
Many London-bound travelers head to Canary Wharf, so LCY would be their preferred airport, rather than LHR, LGW, STN or LTN. And since the eastbound flights are also "true nonstops", the time savings is significant compared to a landing at LHR or LGW followed by a taxi or subway/train ride. Many people would argue that, even including the brief stop for pre-clearance, the westbound flights are also time-saving, because they eliminate the need to go through immigration at JFK (which can take a very long time for foreign citizens, whereas the process at SNN is very quick).

As for WAS, passengers heading to downtown DC from LCY would likely experience a quicker door-to-door journey than those taking a traditional nonstop, due to the expeditied immigration process in SNN, the lack of a commute to LHR/LGW, and the lack of the long drive from IAD.

Originally Posted by dcpatti
LHR sucks, but so does having to land, go through Immigration, then board and take off again. Might work on the outbound, not sure what facilitaties LCY has for International arrivals, but won't work on the return.
The BA pre-clearance process at SNN is quick and efficient. And as for the return to the UK, a quick search would show that LCY, as a major European business destination, has full immigration facilities. These facilities already handle the two daily nonstops from JFK, as well as flights from all over Europe @:-)

But, back on topic: Yes, if the merger led to a LCY-DCA service, I'd be thrilled!

Last edited by ExpatExp; Feb 16, 2013 at 7:22 am Reason: Added link to BA CWLCY service.
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Old Feb 16, 2013, 7:09 am
  #712  
 
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After talking to an AA employee about the merger today, they said people are happy and the flight attendants are happy to be getting some more time off (apparently they are reducing the number of FAs on AA flights). Asked a flight attendant about that and they confirmed some people have a lot of time off next month and they went into how great it is that AA leadership is fired.

I didn't have the heart to tell them that the fact they're going to have a lot of people sitting around probably means they are going to have a large amount of "restructuring" (layoffs) in the near future. They made their bed, I guess they can lie in it.

I did have one of the best FAs ever on my flight though. Never taken this flight before or had him - so I'm not sure whether it can be attributed to him being a great employee or happy about the state of things and just giving great service.
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Old Feb 16, 2013, 8:17 am
  #713  
 
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Thumbs down

Originally Posted by terminator33
Based on past mergers I think we all know that FF and elite benefits are going to be reduced. The only question is by how much.
If AA were in the drivers seat, instead of Parker (with his DWI's) being at the wheel, I would think there was at least a chance of an acceptable outcome. DWI's aside, Parker is not customer-friendly.

When DL took over NW, from my experience as a past DL gold medallion, I knew that was going to be horror story for us Worldperks elites. I had already bailed out of DL once, so I left for CO. I was right, it did turn into a horror story at DL.

When the CO and UA merger happened, I was initially cautiously optimistic, but once they rolled it out, I learned that this attitude was misplaced, and it was again a screw job on passengers. I bailed out to AA.

With Parker, there is little doubt that there will be another screw job. The question will be just how bad. I expect that it will be bad enough to just say to heck with status and ff programs. There will not be a worthwhile program left.
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Old Feb 16, 2013, 8:27 am
  #714  
 
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One reason I am glad to be out of *A, which I flew for several years as a CO elite, is their assinine policy of based mile earning of the fare code of the operating carrier instead of the carrier whose code is on the flight when you fly on a code share. That always made mile earning a crap shoot.

Many *A partners are increasingly shortchanging on miles on leisure fares, while BA gives you full miles on all fares and of course it has always been full files on AA-coded codeshares. That is huge if you have any paid leisure travel in your flying mix.


Originally Posted by Wilbur
Just a few points for those who are sad about losing their place in *A for an entrance to 1W follow below.

1. *A has a great network in theory, but trying to redeem J or F on SQ isn't child's play. Air New Zealand is a fine airline, and the food on ANA is excellent, and the coverage for Europe from the LH group is outstanding, but the UA/CO mess isn't solved by a longshot, and the repercussions not yet fully understood. Plus, SAS!

2. 1W has fewer airline partners, but the quality of said partners is rather more consistent. CX service on the ground and in the air is excellent, and BA, Finnair, JL, LAN, IB, and Qantas all have generally positive outcomes (with some exceptions that prove the rule that we expect them to do well by their passengers). 50% of the 1W airlines are 5-star airlines per SkyTraxx, if that has any value to you, far superior to the other alliances. I also have good expectations for Malaysia and Air Berlin for the future. In addition, you have a slightly better set of Alaska Airlines and WestJet perks than before.

3. Just think - at least you aren't going to deal with SkyTeam, the grab bag of the air leftovers! Alitalia! Areoflot! The rump of Northworst! China Eastern! Garuda! Hooray!
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Old Feb 16, 2013, 8:29 am
  #715  
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I'm amused people are talking about new routes. I think a more realistic topic is what routes are going to be cut by LCC. They cut, not build from what I have seen.
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Old Feb 16, 2013, 8:58 am
  #716  
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Originally Posted by FWAAA
I'm very confident that new AA will expand at SFO.
One would hope so. It is AA's best terminal, and it is a good airport.

Originally Posted by Wilbur
1W has fewer airline partners, but the quality of said partners is rather more consistent. CX service on the ground and in the air is excellent, and BA, Finnair, JL, LAN, IB, and Qantas all have generally positive outcomes (with some exceptions that prove the rule that we expect them to do well by their passengers). 50% of the 1W airlines are 5-star airlines per SkyTraxx, if that has any value to you, far superior to the other alliances. I also have good expectations for Malaysia and Air Berlin for the future. In addition, you have a slightly better set of Alaska Airlines and WestJet perks than before.
+1, totally agree here.

Originally Posted by Wilbur
Just think - at least you aren't going to deal with SkyTeam, the grab bag of the air leftovers! Alitalia! Areoflot! The rump of Northworst! China Eastern! Garuda! Hooray!
Garuda is not that bad. I can do w/o the rest.

Originally Posted by dcpatti
But from what I understand, it can be a challenge to actually get a 1W award on some of these carriers and routes. QF F might be lovely but if availability isn't there because you were busy at the 330-day mark, then its loveliness doesn't much matter. I'll admit I've not found all the legal 1W routings from, say, the US-SYD but I can name 4 on Star without even trying: NZ via AKL (from lax or sometimes YVR); from YVR on AC; via ICN on OZ; and if all else fails, from SFO on UA. I can probably find more if I try. So if there's only one or two of those 5-star carriers who can get you from A to B, you might prefer the alliance that has 4 or more ways. Again SYD is just an example off the top of my head and I know V Australia needs to be accounted for, but there's no doubt that, in certain regions, Star just has more options. And I will take a 4-4.5 star airline that I'll actually give me a premium award space over a 5-star airline whose awards are all taken before I can even book them. Your F cabin can be as nice as it wants and it won't matter to me if I can't sit there.
I dun think it is any more a challenge getting an award on OW partners than other airlines. There's a lot to be said for Expert Flyer. Just saying.

Originally Posted by MAH4546
While true, AA alone is the second largest airline at SFO, and adding US will widen the gap AA has over VX and WN.
I find that hard to believe considering all of the UA and DL planes I see on the ground. Even VX seems to have a greater presence than AA. It's pathetic.

Originally Posted by TheBOSman
Interesting to see that, since VX is much flashier at T2 about their presence and, more notably, serves more destinations (including all of the ones AA serves if you count FLL and MIA as being pretty much the same general area, though of course without the frequencies that AA has to the destinations it serves).
One would hope they have a flashy presence at T2 considering Burlingame is their home base.

Originally Posted by Consultette
After talking to an AA employee about the merger today, they said people are happy and the flight attendants are happy to be getting some more time off (apparently they are reducing the number of FAs on AA flights). Asked a flight attendant about that and they confirmed some people have a lot of time off next month and they went into how great it is that AA leadership is fired.

I didn't have the heart to tell them that the fact they're going to have a lot of people sitting around probably means they are going to have a large amount of "restructuring" (layoffs) in the near future. They made their bed, I guess they can lie in it.
Hope they all get a permanent vacation for trashing the airline.

Originally Posted by Carolinian
With Parker, there is little doubt that there will be another screw job. The question will be just how bad. I expect that it will be bad enough to just say to heck with status and ff programs. There will not be a worthwhile program left.
Count on spend based RDM and a new tier in the very least.

Originally Posted by GadgetFreak
I'm amused people are talking about new routes. I think a more realistic topic is what routes are going to be cut by LCC. They cut, not build from what I have seen.
I suspect that will be the case, especially since the new AA will return to places they've abandoned like BUR and BRU.
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Old Feb 16, 2013, 8:59 am
  #717  
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Originally Posted by grahampros
I tink it's pretty inevitable that some portions of the US's network will be shutdown or reoriented to other hubs. The large increases in costs to bring them up to to AA's levels just wont be sustainable in portions of US's current network. Parker will be aggressive i'm sure in pulling things that wont make money in the new world. They will undoubtedly rationalize capacity and the network as they begin to integrate.
Why assume they wil bring those routes up to AA levels? The levels they are at now were set by this management team. They are the levels they want. It seems much more likely they will cut service on the AA routes to the US levels in order to save since they didnt get the cost savings they needed out of bankruptcy due to having to bribe the employees to back the takeover. Where else will they realize those needed savings other than cutting service?
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Old Feb 16, 2013, 9:04 am
  #718  
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Originally Posted by GadgetFreak
Why assume they wil bring those routes up to AA levels? The levels they are at now were set by this management team. They are the levels they want. It seems much more likely they will cut service on the AA routes to the US levels in order to save since they didnt get the cost savings they needed out of bankruptcy due to having to bribe the employees to back the takeover. Where else will they realize those needed savings other than cutting service?
I'm sure there will be more staff cuts on the US side as punishment for the years of discord between east and west. If not, then maybe the fourth or fifth BK filing will be the charm, eh?
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Old Feb 16, 2013, 9:41 am
  #719  
 
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Originally Posted by Consultette
After talking to an AA employee about the merger today, they said people are happy and the flight attendants are happy to be getting some more time off (apparently they are reducing the number of FAs on AA flights). Asked a flight attendant about that and they confirmed some people have a lot of time off next month and they went into how great it is that AA leadership is fired.

I didn't have the heart to tell them that the fact they're going to have a lot of people sitting around probably means they are going to have a large amount of "restructuring" (layoffs) in the near future. They made their bed, I guess they can lie in it.

I did have one of the best FAs ever on my flight though. Never taken this flight before or had him - so I'm not sure whether it can be attributed to him being a great employee or happy about the state of things and just giving great service.
I said to a pilot on Wednesday evening, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss...."

Nonetheless, there may be some near to medium term benefits to elite level FFs. Based on integration issues at during the UA/CO and DL/NW mergers, there will be a need to go into apology mode when similar issues in this merger occur. Much has been said about luring over UA and DL elites, but retention is going to be equally if not more important. It's not easy to replace a ticked off $30k spend per year customer. Therefore, I see plenty of nice promotions near term by AA to keep us happy when things go wrong. Sure, there may be (actually more than likely) some long term changes to make it more difficult requalify at the highest levels with some reduced benefits. However, I see AA rolling out DEQMs (general and targeted) to compensate for the likely integration pain. I'm not going to complain about that.

The merger certainly fills the east coast gap, strengthens the Caribbean with an already strong South America, is sort of okay in Europe. The AA/AS helps with the gap in the NW US. Leaving Asia. While it can take a long time, why not try to grow it organically. You have the cornerstones (let's include SFO, but go iffy with MIA due to distance, and replace it with say SEA) of AA plus the three hubs of US. OPs who fly to Asia more regularly know far better than me, but why not select a city on the continent to create an AA hub that could appeal to Asian carriers for codeshare from there? You guys can pick the cities, I've never been. Remember, AA exits BK with its $5bn in cash, US has about $1bn, less $1.3 (let's say $1.5bn) in integration costs (cash). A portion of that kind of liquidity can be used to fund it not counting modest leverage.

I think its then time to address the terminals. LGA presents opportunities, but is a mess. The've pretty much taken over the C councourse for AE but that will be spun off most likely. US has the west side of a terminal that was a terrific improvement to LGA in the 80s as DL has taken over the east side. LGA has planned a central terminal rehab ($1.3bn) that quite frankly AA should lead. I've commented before that T8 should be expanded to cover the footprint of the old T9 and become the "oneworld terminal" by bringing over IB, BA, CP, US from T7 and JAL from T1. DFW is great. MIA I can't comment on because I've only been there once over the last four years - you have to believe they need to expand to steer more traffic to the Carib region from there to compliment CLT/DCA/PHL. SFO, I think we all eagerly await taking possession of VX gates - whether that happens, who knows. LAX needs a much stronger offering to be the gateway of the west/pacific. Swap terminals with UA to be closer to the AE sat "terminal" joke?
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Old Feb 16, 2013, 9:52 am
  #720  
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Im still really on the fence as to what to do. As has been pointed out by several, it is unlikely that there will be a lot of bad changes this year. The merger wont go into effect until towards the end of the year. If the crews wont be changing planes for 3 years as some have said that means that if I am careful I might not have to deal with US crews for that long. Then it comes to how long it will take them to reduce the on board service, schedules, the AAdvantage program, on time rates, and the EXP desk and that is anyones guess but I think some of it will come as early as next year. In addition, it isnt clear where to go. I have a friend who is a 1K (and EXP) and flies similar destinations to what I do. I just sent him a text to get his current feeling on UA upgrades. I also have 10, and I think will soon have 2 more, eVIPs on AA for this year. I got the standard 8, plus 2 more for some reason, they like me or something, and then I think I get 2 for going over 2 million miles which if I stay will be soon. I dumped my SWUs on UA when I left while a 1K and hate to do the same thing on AA, especially 12 of them. All reasons to stay this year.

Reasons to leave AA this year, are to basically get it over with, which is a set of reasons ranging from not wasting gaining more miles on the new carrier to psychological reasons to get it out of my mind. I dont know much about DL but need to find out more. I'm a lifetime Premier Exec on UA, or whatever they call it now, so I wouldnt be starting from scratch if I went back to them. Before this happened I asked my assistant to put together flights for us to go over for trips to London, San Francisco and Tokyo I have coming up but I told her to hold up after this while I decided whether to stick with AA.

At this point I am leaning towards sticking it out for this year, and if what I expect will happen does, just cut a lot of my trips. I do have this nagging feeling that should be checking out DL at this point though.
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