Why I hate American Airlines

The BBQ Pit
21

Mjollnir -

  1. Agreed. Just wanted to point out that, contrary to your claim, it is not true that “Under Federal law, any airline flying into Dallas must fly into DFW.”

  2. Semi-Agreed. Jim Wright did represent a district in Fort Worth. However, IIRC, it wasn’t the district in which American has its headquarters complex. Also, IIRC, at the time of the Wright Amendment (late 70s) American’s headquarters were in New York City. They didn’t move to Fort Worth until the sometime in the 80s, I think.

  3. Disagreed. You implied that the Wright Amendment was “concocted…in some backroom deal with AA.” The fact is that it was created specifically to deal with Southwest’s desire to expand its Love Field service beyond the state of Texas. That American vociferously pushes for continued restrictions on Love Field in order to maintain its near-monopoly on North Texas airline service is merely a consequence of the Wright Amendment.

  4. So many to choose from, so little space:
    a.) Bouncing twenty-two checks in the House banking scandal.
    b.) Accepting a $4.5 million book deal from Rupert Murdoch’s Harper Collins publishing house while Murdoch was fighting an FCC complaint against his Fox TV network.
    c.) Using tax-exempt educational and charitable donations for partisan political purposes. (See GOPAC.)
    d.) Misleading the Ethics Committee investigating the GOPAC issue. (He agreed to pay a $300,000 fine for doing this.)
    e.) Switched from being an environmentalist critic of Georgia’s Southwire corporation to being a staunch anti-environmentalist after receiving donations from Southwire’s PAC.
    f.) Criticizing Clinton for his adulterous affair with Monica Lewinski, all the while he was carrying on an adulterous affair of his own.

Could you please provide me with some specific examples of Jim Wright’s “crookedness” so that I can determine who may be more “crooked”?

For the record, I hate American Airlines as much as the next guy. American has a history of driving out any competition that threatens its near-monopoly at DFW (example: flooding the DFW-Wichita, Kansas route with cheap fares and increased flights in order to drive out upstart Vanguard Airlines, only to raise fares and cut back service once Vanguard pulled out.) They are the driving force behind most of the Love Field lawsuits because, in my opinion, they are threatened by the competition that increased Love service will bring.

22

Mjollnir wrote:

But by rights, Love Field should not even be an option for flying to Dallas because it should have been closed in 1974 when Fort Worth closed its airport. Instead, Dallas has been able to have its cake and eat it too. They get revenue from both DFW and Love, while Fort Worth is limited only to its share of the DFW pie and has lost its own airport. Pretty crappy, if you ask me. In a just world, Dallas would close Love like it agreed to do, Southwest would be forced to move to DFW or leave the Dallas market all together, and the Wright Amendment would be void and unneccessary.

As a side note, in case anyone is interested in this piece of trivia, American’s headquarters are on the site of the old Fort Worth Airport. If you ever have the chance to take off to the south on one of the west side runways at DFW, you can see the remanants of the runway at the old airport as you fly over American’s complex.

23

I can’t believe anyone but an employee or shareholder would support American Airlines here. I hate them. Dallas was withholding approval for any DFW airport improvements until Ft Worth allowed expanded area flights from Love Field. I believe Dallas just recently stopped its objections. The reason? The mayor of Dallas’ lawfirm is retained by American Airlines! This is the 21st century and Dallas is a cosmopolitan town but they they let a corrupt shyster lawyer Mayor make this decision with this enormous conflict of interest. This is the kind of feudal crony capitalism that I might expect in SE Asia. I don’t care what agreement was made in the past, restricting SW Airlines out of Love Field is a blatant restraint of trade. I believe the FAA came down on SW’s side during the summer but was going to let the two cities work it out. Maybe it is Ft Worth jealousy of being left in the economic dust by Dallas because Ft Worth can’t support its own airport. Wake up Dallasites! Your state has a nasty history of big money running the show. Throw the mayor out of office and into jail on corruption charges. Remember SW Airlines is highly regarded both as a place to work and as means of transportation. The pig fuckers at American Airlines are given no such regard. Enlightened self interest means opening up Love Field to whereever SW Airlines wants to go.

24

mipsman wrote:

So what you’re saying, mipsman, is that if you enter into a contract with someone, and when the other party fulfills its obligation to the contract, it’s OK for you back out of your obligation?

You wrote:

If you read my posts above, you would know that Fort Worth did not close its airport because it couldn’t support it. It closed it when the CAB demanded that both cities build a joint airport, and both cities signed agreements to close their respective airports. Fort Worth did; Dallas didn’t. Plain and simple.

If you had any knowledge of aviation industry history, you would know that prior to the late 70s, the CAB/FAA controlled which airports and routes an airline served. The airline had little choice in the matter, as did the city. So having the ability to support an airport had little bearing on whether a city had a successful airport.

You also wrote:

I don’t know if that was directed to me, but let me assure you that I’m neither an employee or shareholder of AA. In fact, as I posted previously, I hate AA as much as the next guy.

You wrote as well:

It should be noted that the law firm that employees Mayor Kirk was retained by American long before this latest conflict began, and probably long before he was mayor.

Maybe the real reason Dallas dropped its objections to DFW expansion was because Dallas realized that it was wrong to keep its own airport opened 25 years after Fort Worth closed its airport, much less allow service to expand? Naahh! In Dallas money talks, whether the outcome is right or wrong. Around here, the means justify the end. So, I’ll give you the corruption angle.

Finally, you wrote:

You are right in that Southwest is highly regarded by both its employees and the flying public. But if Southwest had any desire to do the right thing, it would move its operations to DFW (there’s plenty of room, a lot more than they have at Love), which would allow Dallas to do the right thing and fulfill its obligation to close Love.

I am by no means a defender of American Airlines. I only posted this information here to “help stamp out ignorance” in regard to Love Field, the Wright Amendment, and the unique airport situation here in the Dallas/Fort Worth region.

25

Kepi:

To respond to Newt v Wright:

I was looking for examples of “crookedness.” Most of what you supplied had more to do with political disagreements:

a) Twenty-two bad checks. Pretty bad. Most of us would have been hauled off to the pokey for something like that. I think the House Bank scandal was a disaster and a shame. I think Speaker Foley himself (under whose watch this was exposed) had bounced checks. The investigation did not go as far back as the Wright regime to see whether or not he had. I don’t view that as “crookedness” so much as those were the rules that the House made for themselves.

b) Book deal. I’ll come back to that.

c) and d) are actually part of the same thing. Newt was cleared of all charges brought against him–except one: using charitable contributions for partisan political purposes or something like that. But that was made by the investigators. Later, after Newt had left town, the IRS said that there had been no violation of law. The $300,000 fine was supposed to repay for the cost of investigating him for charges that “they” brought up, and ended up all being groundless. And it didn’t cost the House one penny to investigate him. That money came out of my and your pockets.

e) I’m not familiar with that, but it doesn’t sound like “crookedness.” Bad politics, maybe, but not “crookedness.”

f) Clinton? I have no idea what Newt said about the President. I don’t think the President was in trouble for his dallying with Ms Lewinsky in the Oval Orifice. His trouble, IIRC, had to do with witness tampering in the Paula Jones lawsuit (which I think was a load of hockey, but that’s off-topic). And I don’t care that Newt or Clinton or whoever had a galpal on the side. If Newt was chiding him for infidelity, then he probably should have kept his mouth shut. Again, I wouldn’t call the breaking of marital vows “crooked.”

Now about the book deal: IIRC, Newt had had several different book deals, all of which had been approved by the Ethics committee. The one that is frequently cited (the name of which escapes me) was published by a major publisher and sold several hundred thousand copies in book stores. Newt’s royalty percentage was a basic %15.

Speaker Wright’s book (“Reflections of a Public Man”) was a cut-and-paste job that was published by a former employee. Speaker Wright’s royalty percentage, in contrast, was a modest %55 (no, there’s no decimal missing). Also, Speaker Wright’s book basically never saw the light of day. It was never sold to bookstores, AFAIK. It was only sold in bulk to lobbyists and unions. Speaker Wright opted to resign rather that face an investigation on ethics violations.

BTW, I do not own any copy of any of Newt’s books, but I do own a copy of “Reflections of a Public Man.”

26

BTW, when Newt first filed ethics charges against Speaker Wright, one of Wright’s bulldogs filed ten charges of his own in retaliation against Newt.

Eighteen months and over $100,000 in legal fees (to Newt), they were all, too, found groundless.

27

Kepi,
If an agreement is illegal, it should be voided, it doesn’t even matter if it was forced on the participants or not. It doesn’t do your argument any good to quote CAB/FAA regulations from the mid-70’s. Airline deregulation (as laughable as that term is) was started in the late 70’s to break up these “agreements” (i.e. restraints of trade). Mayor Kirk (thanx for the name) should have recused himself from any direct intervention. No if’s, and’s or but’s there. His actions are a blatant conflict of interest if not illegal influence peddling. He should go down for this like his buddy now on trial in El Paso. Expand service from Love Field, put an airport out in Plano or western Ft Worth if it is convenient for the people. If there is no traffic control problems why would you object to superseding 20-25 year old pacts from an over-regulated, price fixing era?

28

How is the contract Dallas and Fort Worth signed illegal? They mutually agreed to protect their investments in DFW by guaranteeing that neither city would siphon off DFW business at the expense of the other city. Fort Worth fulfilled its obligations, Dallas didn’t.

I think Fort Worth has let Dallas off easy by allowing Love Field to remain open for 25 years in direct violation of their contract. If Dallas insists on leaving Love open, the least it could do is to share that revenue equally with Fort Worth. Or even better, let Fort Worth have exclusive control of DFW and the revenue that comes with it. Does that sound fair enough for you?

29

Go to ecomplaints.com. Their #1 most-complained-about corporation is American Airlines. All the top 10 are airlines.

“That was a hell of a thing.”

30

Having worked at a subsidiary company of American for over a year, I can guarantee that they are indeed pig fuckers. Especially my old boss.

Will work for sig line.