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!

Get rid of the incompetent flight attendants, try to become a world-class carrier, invest in a real business class and you'll be able to tell Scotty that he was wrong.

By the way, offer a meal from Charlotte to LaGuardia instead of a snack basket.

Even less would I look to Ben Schlappig (or ANY travel blogger shameless credit card shill) for insight on the subject.

Ben has a world-class vision of air travel.

Kirby has taken UA from being worse than AA to several standard deviations better. He's good at talking smack and spinning narratives, but he can back it up.

This has been the issue with AA since Crandall. The board has been a rubber stamp to some incredibly bad leadership.

I don't think that he is saying that AA will go under, just that AA is getting left behind, and possibly irreversibly so.

Some of these decisions are permanent or take decades to undo. UA's Isom-equivalent, Smisek bailing on JFK is still hurting UA. AA let DL eat it's lunch in NYC, no coming back from that. With the latest gate allocations in ORD, UA seems poised to give AA one final kick between the legs; AA won't go away at ORD, but UA will keep poaching away high value customers, leading to AA cutting frequencies, leading to more defections etc etc.

DL has been the clear #1 for a while, both financially and operationally. Kind of hard to take pot shots at that without looking foolish. In addition, AA is both his former employer and a clown show, so it's both personal and easy.

UA is weird - their own metal cost is atrocious like AA, but I have been able to find some some pretty decent partner redemptions using UA miles. Some are mixed cabin (partner J and a short UA leg in Y), but I'll happily take that.

Domestically, AA miles are far, far easier to redeem at great value.

A visionary? Vision is scary!

And, more importantly, is he a thought leader?

I was able to use AA miles to fly its partner JAL in First ORD/TYO/ORD in September.

Lol!

As a consumer, there 100% should be (and needs to be) more than two majors.

Is AA underperforming compared to UA and DL? Of course, that's been covered here thoroughly. But any suggestion of reduction to two major airlines should send shivers down the spine of every traveler.

Now I'm certain Scott doesn't read this forum nor does he care what I think but I will say: I'm very impressed with what he has done with United. I'm posting this from a Polaris lounge. But, Scott: get over AA, stop talking about them. Focus on continuing the great improvements you've spearheaded at UA.

Kirby is an obnoxious mouthpiece trying to stay relevant...as usual. If your competition is failing then you don't brag about it and advertise it to the world. You say nothing and let them quietly fall. The fact that he is singling out AA tells me that AA is a very real threat to his business model. JMHO

Color me shocked that people read still the various credit card bloggers clickbait....

Airlines can't just expand at DCA.

Lucky has likely been on FT for as long as you've been.

I'm sure there's a sweet spot or two left but shopping for an ANA J flight with UA miles recently was a real eye opener. F was just comical

There's really no correlation between FFP value and the sponsoring airline's financial health and ability to compete. I'm also a fan of the AA program relative to UA and DL, but concerned the airline may fade into irrelevance. Current management's indecisive tinkering around the edges is not going to cure its ills, which include an increasingly debilitating debt load.

I redeemed a few times this year for NH J, a great product. What was so eye-opening about it?

The miles being stronger is actually a bad thing for the company, as it means they lose more in comparison when we book flights with miles.

11 miles / dollar redeemed at 2CPM = 22% vs Delta's .5CPM = 5.5% of the revenue going to miles value.

It was 110k UA miles I think and F was over 200k miles. Nothing new but just a reminder how much inflation there has been at UA in just the last few years.

My take exactly. The only reason I've been loyal to American for so many years is the FFP, and it's literally the only reason I don't switch my loyalty to DL. Still, the best FFP in the world can't make up for terrible debt load, lack of any kind of vision, and an incomprehensible retreat from premium markets (JFK, ORD, LAX). AA's network out of my home city used to be outstanding, now it's terrible.

The hard product is nice, the service is fine, the Bollinger partnership is cool, but they're in a totally different game than DL on the ground product and UL on global network. If they went all-in on their "desire to go premium" and better leveraged their excellent JV's , there'd be hope. Instead they seem content slinging credit cards to the middle class in the sunbelt.

I find myself still trying to accumulate AAdvantage miles, but am going to barely requalify for ExPlat this year and will probably give up loyalty all together next year. Been quite enjoying the AmEx and Chase ecosystems.

well, the type of famous words that always come back to bite a person in the a**. reminds me when parker claimed that AA would never lose money again. look at where we are now

erm and our dear kirby seem to have similar amount of UA and AA stocks. guess he isnt as bad as he seems and dont mind taking a hit together with AA

I doubt he still holds AA stock, it would be a conflict of interest. Note the 2016 transaction date for AAL shares.

I have booked LH, NH, AI (yech), TG and ET for 80k miles in J. (Normally 88k, but my SO has a UA card). Peak times are horrible, but outside of that, found some decent options.

True. But IME, there is a difference between Parker and Kirby. Parker was riding high in a bull market along with everyone (and still underperforming everyone else), while Kirby has taken UA from a bigger dumpster fire than AA to a respectable operation.

They have to be. We're the source for the material (just add credit card sales pitch)

I think he's been on for at least 20 years, and was around 14 when he joined. But, that doesn't excuse his credit card hawking on the back of our content business.

For now there isn't a path for AA to catch up financially to DL and UA. However, airline management sometimes will get cocky and start with the cost cutting teeing off it's most valuable passengers and into the hands of another. BTW it's not like UA is the present day PanAm Clipper.

2016 is the transaction date, not last updated date, so unless the information on that website is wrong, kirby still owns a lot of AA shares. not sure about the conflict of interest, but he has always had those stocks, and it is disclosed, so the board is aware and seems fine with it.