By Rich Tomaselli
At least, that’s what the carrier’s new marketing slogan is. “Going For Great.” Who would have thought it on Dec. 9, 2013, when American Airlines emerged from post 9/11 bankruptcy and officially merged with US Airways to become American Airlines Group?
And after a year of record profits and achieved goals associated with the merger, frankly who can blame them for their confidence and optimism?
“I feel really good about where we are in 2014,” American CEO Doug Parker told the Arizona Republic.
But now comes the hard part.
Everything American and US Airways did in 2014 was, well, like getting into college. They filled out the applications, paid the proper fees, wrote the essays, maintained their grades and outside activities … everything required to get in.
In retrospect, all relatively easy accomplishments compared to actually enrolling and getting a degree in four years. It’s the same thing with the merger.
Painting the new livery on the planes? Easy.
Integrating reservations systems? Not so easy.
That’s not to minimize the extraordinary strides American made this year. Merging with US Airways meant a combined 6,700 flights a day to almost 350 destinations in 54 countries, serviced by nearly 120,000 employees. American and US Airways have synched operations at more than 90 airports in the U.S. The codesharing plan was implemented, and reciprocal frequent flier miles were offered to customers of both airlines.
It is, indeed, the world’s largest airline in every sense of the word.
The relatively turbulence-free ride American enjoyed this year resulted in record profits — $2.4 billion through the first nine months of the year, including a record $942 million in the third quarter alone. That was enough for the carrier to produce its first dividend in 34 years and initiate a $1 billion stock buyback plan.
Yet even Parker acknowledges the most difficult part of integration is yet to come.
“Next year is arguably a bigger year,” he told the Republic.
American’s New Year’s resolutions for 2015 are daunting. The airline has three major issues to resolve.
1) Negotiate labor peace and merge the unions that serve the two airlines. American had hoped to have one major labor hurdle out of the way already with its flight attendants, but a new contract was rejected in October by just 16 votes out of 16,000 cast.
2) Merge the two frequent flier clubs by bringing US Airways’ Dividend Miles program into AA Advantage. That’s 100 million people if you’re counting at home. American hopes to accomplish this by late spring, mostly so it can turns its attention the second half of the year to ….
3) Merging computer reservations into a single system. We’ve already seen the nightmares this can cause, as in 2011 when United and Continental merged and the reservations system crashed, cancelling and delaying thousands of flights and stranding thousands of passengers. In fact, Parker himself has witnessed it – and presumably learned from the mistakes – when he led US Airways’ 2005 merger with America West and the same types of problems occurred.
“Not getting these things done would mean we haven’t done our jobs,” Parker said. “I expect we will. Frankly if we don’t it certainly doesn’t mean we’ve failed. It just means delayed, which isn’t good.”
In the meantime, American announced it would be investing $2 billion in upgrading its seats, in-flight entertainment and more.
“One of the things we’re going to do in 2015 is make sure we’re improving the product and investing in the product,” Parker told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, “and not just working on integration.”
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