So there wasn't too much news in terms of airlines today - the ATA SmartBrief I get every day detailing the day's airline news was pretty boring; the most interesting story was about the flight attendants on Air Force One.
That is, until this doosy broke:
AMR Corp Plans to Divest American Eagle Airlines
Kind of a bombshell...
American Eagle (Eagle) is the regional arm of American Airlines (aka the Evil Empire). It's been around since November 1, 1984 (23 years and 27 days), and began as a conglomeration of regional airlines that were all eventually purchased and branded under the American Eagle name.
Eagle is easily the largest regional airline in the world, and it's been owned and operated as part of AMR Holdings (the parent company of American Airlines) since they all came together.
AA has been throwing around the idea of spinning of Eagle since after 9/11, but even when they were close to declaring bankruptcy (which almost happened in 2002) it was never really an option.
Wall Street seems to have reacted favorably to the announcement, pushing AMR's stock up 6 percent ... but that doesn't really mean much. As the article mentions, there are many things that still must be considered before the airline is actually spun off. There are many ways that Eagle could be spun off, including a stock offering to current AMR shareholders, selling it to a third party or even breaking it up into various operations, perhaps by regional hub area (DFW ops would be Texas Airlines, ORD ops Illinois Airlines, etc...) - or by some other financial measurement.
This is an interesting thing to do at this time for American. Ask any AA pilot at the moment, and he/she will tell you that the airline is gearing up for a nasty union fight. A few weeks ago I flew to Minneapolis from Chicago and sat next to an AA 767 F/O who lives in the suburbs of MSP. He told me the airline's management has continued to disappoint its pilots, especially in terms of executive vs. pilot compensation. His exact words were "the next four years are going to be ugly."
So what does this have to do with Eagle?
Well, most mainline airlines have certain contracts with their pilot unions limiting the amount of seats its regional partners can fly (thereby limiting aircraft size). By spinning off American Eagle in the midst of its growing battle with pilot unions (but keeping in the contract of whatever financial deal it uses to spin off the airlines that it will continue to use aircraft operating under the AMR certificate for its regional operations), American Eagle could then purchase those larger regional airplanes (EMB 170, 190), since it wouldn't be under the same limitations it is under the current arrangement, and fly passengers on an American Airlines ticket on those larger airplanes - thereby putting more passengers through the system with non-AA pilots.
Wow - it took me a long ass time to get to that point. I'm watching the YouTube - CNN Republican debate and these long winded answers are invading my fingers.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
post deux
I swear I won't be starting every post with the sequential French language number in reference of the post. That is, I won't be after I run out of French numbers that I know.
So there's been quite a few news stories about airlines and aviation lately. There's always a myriad of topics to write about in this industry, but here's two fairly typical stories:
Aboard Planes, Class Conflict (New York Times)
Rumors, Merger Talk and Denial by Airlines (New York Times)
The NY Times is definitely my most favorite media outlet - and you'll find me referencing their articles often.
The first article is your typical discussion of the supposed "newfound" differences you'll find flying inside the cabin of a commercial airliner today. First class is glamorous, coach class is cattle class. Blah blah blah - there's been pretty huge cabin class differences in the past 60 years of airline history at least - if not longer. The only things you don't get in Coach now that you used to get is a meal - and in some cases, a pillow and blanket.
Boohoo - is a pillow and a blanket really going to matter that much? Maybe on a flight longer than 6 hours - but you're probably going to get one of each on a flight longer than that anyway.
The outcry over a lack of meals I can kind of understand ... but when I was growing up everyone used to complain about airline food anyway. So now you have to pay $5 for a cold sandwich (seriously, it's pretty hard to screw up a sandwich), cheese and sweet treat instead of getting some gross hot dish and vegetable that's already been around for 12 hours before it was reheated in a crammed galley oven? It doesn't make that much difference to me either way - frankly I'd rather buy my lunch/dinner in the terminal and have some options than eat canned airline food. But that's just me ...
So bottom line, people are making way too much out of this perceived class disparity ... don't be complaining about it when you paid $300 or less for a coach seat while they paid $900 for the same seat up front. They get a little bit more leg room, a little bit wider seat width, and for the most part free booze. Good for them - you can hang out crammed in coach sitting in a middle seat drinking a $5 can of beer and still have at least 595 more dollars in your pocket than that first class person did after both of you booked a ticket. And even if they upgraded using miles - that still means that passenger is likely flying thousands of miles every year crammed back in coach drinking $5 beer just like you - they just have to sit through it more often. Don't they deserve a little reward for their commitment to keeping your favorite airline solvent so you can book that cheap fair to wherever?
And for the second article - I'll get to that in a later post. Nip/Tuck's on again and I need to pay more attention to it than I did the last time it was on nine minutes ago. Solid second post...
So there's been quite a few news stories about airlines and aviation lately. There's always a myriad of topics to write about in this industry, but here's two fairly typical stories:
Aboard Planes, Class Conflict (New York Times)
Rumors, Merger Talk and Denial by Airlines (New York Times)
The NY Times is definitely my most favorite media outlet - and you'll find me referencing their articles often.
The first article is your typical discussion of the supposed "newfound" differences you'll find flying inside the cabin of a commercial airliner today. First class is glamorous, coach class is cattle class. Blah blah blah - there's been pretty huge cabin class differences in the past 60 years of airline history at least - if not longer. The only things you don't get in Coach now that you used to get is a meal - and in some cases, a pillow and blanket.
Boohoo - is a pillow and a blanket really going to matter that much? Maybe on a flight longer than 6 hours - but you're probably going to get one of each on a flight longer than that anyway.
The outcry over a lack of meals I can kind of understand ... but when I was growing up everyone used to complain about airline food anyway. So now you have to pay $5 for a cold sandwich (seriously, it's pretty hard to screw up a sandwich), cheese and sweet treat instead of getting some gross hot dish and vegetable that's already been around for 12 hours before it was reheated in a crammed galley oven? It doesn't make that much difference to me either way - frankly I'd rather buy my lunch/dinner in the terminal and have some options than eat canned airline food. But that's just me ...
So bottom line, people are making way too much out of this perceived class disparity ... don't be complaining about it when you paid $300 or less for a coach seat while they paid $900 for the same seat up front. They get a little bit more leg room, a little bit wider seat width, and for the most part free booze. Good for them - you can hang out crammed in coach sitting in a middle seat drinking a $5 can of beer and still have at least 595 more dollars in your pocket than that first class person did after both of you booked a ticket. And even if they upgraded using miles - that still means that passenger is likely flying thousands of miles every year crammed back in coach drinking $5 beer just like you - they just have to sit through it more often. Don't they deserve a little reward for their commitment to keeping your favorite airline solvent so you can book that cheap fair to wherever?
And for the second article - I'll get to that in a later post. Nip/Tuck's on again and I need to pay more attention to it than I did the last time it was on nine minutes ago. Solid second post...
post un
So here we have a blog. You've probably seen one of these before - and mine's probably not too terribly different.
Or is it!?
Meh ... anywho - reading other people's blogs and not yet having an outlet to write about what I like to write about - which is mainly airlines, aviation and airplanes (but seriously, other assorted things too), are some of the reasons I decided tonight after a few days of deep soul searching to start this blog.
That was a run-on sentence - you'll likely see a few of them here; all on purpose and all for a reason, for effect and such.
But I digress ... "I'm a leading man, but the lies I lead are oh so intricate ... oh so intricate ...
do do do do, do dooo..."
That lyric's from Fall Out Boy - and a non sequitur. I'm really not trying to be cute. It's pretty lame when bloggers try and be cute.
Maybe I can follow up this post with some that are actually good. We'll see!
Or is it!?
Meh ... anywho - reading other people's blogs and not yet having an outlet to write about what I like to write about - which is mainly airlines, aviation and airplanes (but seriously, other assorted things too), are some of the reasons I decided tonight after a few days of deep soul searching to start this blog.
That was a run-on sentence - you'll likely see a few of them here; all on purpose and all for a reason, for effect and such.
But I digress ... "I'm a leading man, but the lies I lead are oh so intricate ... oh so intricate ...
do do do do, do dooo..."
That lyric's from Fall Out Boy - and a non sequitur. I'm really not trying to be cute. It's pretty lame when bloggers try and be cute.
Maybe I can follow up this post with some that are actually good. We'll see!
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