American Airlines Files for Chapter 11

[Garry Russell]

Shares down 85 per cent

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15935206

[FlyTexas]

A lot of people said it was bound to happen sooner or later, but it's still sad to see. I hope the employees will be ok. Seeing this makes me think about retired AA captain Tony Vallillo. I wonder if the retirees will lose their pension? Captain Tony wrote a bunch of great articles on flightsim.com. Here's one of them. http://www.flightsim.com/main/feature/fargosy1.htm

Brian

[Garry Russell]

This probably means it will be OK

The protection allows them breathing space to rebuid

Others have gone through this in the past and survived.

Let's hope they can get through theleaner winter.

[simondix]

Weren't Delta and United both in it for a while?

[Garry Russell]

Yes they were

One of them...can't think which off hand but think it was one of them, went chapter 11 twice

American was the only US major carrier not to file for some sort of bankruptcy since 09-11-2001

[Chris Trott]

I hate when they say American is the last of the "Major US Carriers" not to file bankruptcy because it ignores Southwest. While not an international carrier (yet), it is still a Major carrier both by revenue and by certification. They are the only one not to post more than one quarter of loss since Sept. 11th thanks to having a decent working relationship with their unions.

[Garry Russell]

I thinks it an international thing Chris

Most people this side of the pond know United, American, Delta, Pan Am, Continental, TWA etc but few of the general public will know about Southwest and those who do will not know how big it is so the info would mean nothing

Maybe the general public in the States don't know how big Ryanair and easyJet are although some might have heard of them.

Virgin and BA they will mostly know.

[FlyTexas]

Did somebody say...Southwest?? Ok, I'll be quiet. Exactly, Garry. Your average American probably has no idea that you can fly Ryanair from London to Madrid.

Brian

[Garry Russell]

Make that somewhere outside London to nowhere near Madrid

[Chris Trott]

TBH, for a long time, that was the perception of Southwest although it was odd because in many cases their destinations were actually closer to the destination city than the "Major" airlines using airports like Love Field, Hobby, Midway, and Newark. I didn't realize until recently that for a lot of New York City, Newark is actually a better airport to go into because you're along side the island instead of on one end of it.