American Airlines / Chapter 11

[Novocaine]

Not good -- they employ way more than the 7,000 on their payroll here. We have a lot of vendors who do tons of work for them that would be in deep trouble if they closed the facility here and outsourced the maintenance to Central America.

 

[aTUfan]

Maybe they could have made a profit if they had charge more for bags and change fees. Obviously they can't improve their performance.

 

[Novocaine]

The MD-80s use a lot of fuel and they've been saddled with almost 300 of them. Fleet upgrade & tweaking labor deals should be all it takes. Never underestimate the power of both sides to screw themselves though.

 

[jesterondirt]

Soon as Southwests hedged fuel runs out and they start paying top dollar, their prices will go back up and all the other airlines will benefit again.

 

[aTUfan]

SWA wrote the book on Fuel hedging; they have taken some hits with it but continue to succeed.