I've read lots of interesting hoopla about how US Airways can sell off its assets. I didn't understand the hoopla because, to my understanding, all the real assets are pledged for loans already. So, to anyone thinking that there is value in the "Shuttle", forget it. The "Shuttle" is just a bunch of pledged aircraft, pledged slots, and pledged gates. So someone else owns that. Does anyone think someone would also buy the pilots, union agreements, etc?
What amazes me is how clueless the management at US Airways is. If you read their 80+ page filing, they have no plan. Their big plan is to launch service out of FLL to the Caribbean and South America. But if you read the fine print you discover that the service won't start until February, 2005 and that they have not even applied for the routes (you need to apply for international routes). In the interim, without any public notice other than the DOL website, Spirit applied for and received approval for those very same routes last March. They launch service in November on brand new Airbus aircraft. Their home base is FLL. So US Airways big plan is to launch service to compete with a LCC in the base of the LCC? Is that dumb or what? Service to Cancun out of PHL was $1200 roundtrip as of last December 17th when US Airways had the monopoly in the area. The next day it dropped to $450. Why? Spirit started service out of Atlantic City for $450 to Cancun. The difference is that Spirit makes money at that rate and US Airways loses money at that rate.
We could go into a city by city analysis. It makes me sick. I'm so glad we had the foresight to leave them in August, 2001. I'm so sad about those that stayed and did their best.
Here's one article:
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/040914/airli...airways_5.html