Is AA "Cooked"?
 

Scott Kirby has indicated that there should only be two majors and the AA is Cooked. My experience this year would tend to agree with him.

United CEO Scott Kirby Confidently Declares That American Is Cooked - One Mile at a Time

Anyone else?

My opinion? There's no hope so long as present management remains in place. The fact that the board isn't doing anything to replace management suggests there's a big problem there as well.

American may be cooked. I don't know, I don't understand the business well enough. But I certainly wouldn't look to Scott Kirby for insight on the subject. As Ben Schlappig said in that blog, "It’s what [Kirby] wants the narrative to be."

Kirby is talking a big game before his employee costs shoot up. I don’t think anything is nearly as clear as any of the participants want it to be, and since AA’s credit card game seems stronger than UA and DL, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. As long as AAdvantage maintains a clear position as a better program, AA is far from cooked…it they devalue like SkyMilies, well, the fall will hurt.

If this was really the case, then they should uncover ways to start taking advantage at locations where AA could be vulnerable in 5 years. Open a hub in Florida. Open up and expand partnerships at JFK. Expand at National and Phoenix.

Just because AA miles are more valuable doesn't mean their CC game is stronger. DL generated $7.4 Billion from Amex in 2024 vs. $6.1 Billion for AA from Citi. For 3Q 2025, DL reported 12% year-over-year growth from Amex spend while AA reported 9% from Citi. Most people are not as focused on things like CPM value compared to FTers. That said, I'm not convinced AA is in any real danger of going under.

Ah is it time for Kirby's quarterly digs at AA?

I don't think AA will disappear but they are certainly very stuck in a state of mediocrity, the airline version of Target right now, and I wonder if AA can grow in the short to medium term especially with new aircraft coming online.

Considering AA has the best FF program right now, it makes me sad the market doesn't seem to value that as much. Or maybe it values it just enough to keep AA above water in competitive markets.

I'm more accustomed to seeing him blast LCCs, except for JetBlue. That just serves as a reminder to me to throw business at LCCs on occasion.

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.

First, that excludes Barclays income for AA. Second, the likely upcoming issues with premium credit cards being able to be rejected by retailers will almost certainly hit Amex harder. Third, I didn’t even link the two things.

It's pretty obvious what Scott Kirby is doing. He's petty and revengeful, and he's practicing "if you repeat the lie enough times people will start to believe in it". AA has made many terrible mistakes in the past decade, and the management is for sure at fault. However, I don't think AA is in a irreversible course of doom. United may be riding on a high last year, but they've already started cutting unprofitable European routes. On top of that, United still has that pending big labor contract negotiation which is bound to drive up its cost and United's PRASM will go down in the coming years. Of course these are not things Scott Kirby is talking about.

I misquoted their financials. The $6.1 Billion was actually from all co-branded credit cards and partners. I guess we'll see where things shake out with the credit cards. I could see Amex potentially being more willing to play ball with vendors on their rates rather than losing customers.

He never seems to denigrate Delta, unless I've missed it.

Hold up now... Get out of the darn kitchen...

I was credited with the 90,000 for its new card a few days ago. I would like to use this for premium international travel before any cooking is done. So let's hold off shall we...

At least those are AA miles. They'd be cooked if UA miles!