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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.