3 Links I Love: AA Leadership Team, Ryanair Gets Cheeky, Leftover Pins, and More

American, Delta, Links I Love

American Airlines Announces Senior Leadership TeamAmerican Newsroom
Here it is, the official leadership team under new American CEO Robert Isom… and it’s what you’d expect it to look like if you were hoping for continuity. Elise Eberwein will retire and her job is split between Ron DeFeo and Cole Brown. Steve Johnson looks like he gets to do special projects while two of his lieutenants move up to split his old job. Derek Kerr keeps CFO and moves to Vice Chair. The only surprise here is that Vasu Raja moves up from Chief Revenue Officer to Chief Commercial Officer, taking over sales and marketing that had fallen under Alison Taylor. Alison now reports to Vasu, so that feels like a demotion to me.

Tweet of the Week

Oh, Ryanair. Never change.

Two for the Road

Capital Markets DayDelta
Delta had its investor day and you can read through the full powerpoint deck to get a handle on how Delta views itself these days.

The Loss of My Favorite Travel Partner ForeverAirlineReporter
For those who haven’t heard, AirlineReporter founder David Parker Brown lost his wife this summer to cancer. This is a nice tribute to their shared love of travel. The box of unused pins… good luck not getting choked up when you get to that point. I think we need volunteers to start going on trips with David, because I’m pretty sure Brittany would want those pins put to good use.

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16 comments on “3 Links I Love: AA Leadership Team, Ryanair Gets Cheeky, Leftover Pins, and More

  1. Interesting deck from DL. It’s funny how much they harped on health and safety when their competitive advantage (blocked middle seats) went away months ago, and their stance on vaccines is much less safety-conscious than UA.

    More amusingly, the slide titled “Best International Platform for Long-Term Profitable Growth” is a masterclass in manipulating data to make it say what you want…. UA crushes DL in terms of share to Europe overall, and AA destroys DL in South America. And the number 1 JV hub in Asia is based solely on 2019 connectivity to Southeast Asia (???). If I had shown my MD a slide like that I would have been mocked, but I guess it’s all cool in ATL.

    1. Delta marketing is always a treat. Some other industry leading metric where they excel:
      1. Industry-Leading position in Northern Georgia
      2. Most Sky Clubs of any international airline
      3. Largest carrier to Heathrow (footnote 1: from Minnesota)
      4. Largest carrier in New York, DC, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, and Charlotte (footnote 2: carriers in metric include only those headquartered east of the Chattahoochee river)
      5. More Bellinis served than any other carrier

  2. Gary Leff noted that there’s no new president. Will one be named? Will he or she come in from outside?

  3. first, I am optimistic about the leadership changes at AA. The most promising thing Isom has said is that he is committed to ending the money-losing activities that AA has been involved in.

    As for the DL investor day/capital markets deck, the real question is what others say but more importantly do. Let us know what other airlines say and do. At this point, no other airline has changed their investor guidance from a 4th quarter loss to even a minimal profit.

    Everyone will come up w/ their own set of criteria as to what they think is best, including for international networks, but the ultimate goal is to make money – and Delta’s international system is delivering more profits more consistently than any other US carrier. And the chances are high that the trend will expand going into 2022 and beyond. Data speaks for itself esp. when it is filed by the airlines themselves with the DOT

    1. Southwest altered its 4th quarter guidance from a loss to a profit, with the latest Covid variant being a variable. As your are a Southwest shareholder, I’m surprised you are not aware of that.

      1. you are correct. they did not provide an approximate margin or profit number in their guidance. Granted the Delta investor day came a week after LUV’s but both were in December.
        But the theme is still the same as it was pre-covid that 2 out of the big 4 lead the industry profitability as LUV noted in their presentation.

  4. My deepest condolence to David Parker Brown. I met him on a number of Aviation Geek Festivals he organized at SEA/PAE. Because of the AGF I can tour Boeing’s various facilities that are only open to customers. Obviously I am not a Boeing customer.

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