A rare man, a real stand up guy

[The Inspector]

Gerard Arpey CEO of AMR/ AMERICAN AIRLINES has resigned with zero bailouts or compensation or lovely parting gifts. Rather than go back on promises made to employees of the carrier as part of bankruptcy proceedings, he quit. Don't know him, never heard much about him, or his interactions with those who work for the carrier but he sounds like a real genuine person and an airplane guy.

[cwmc]

Been reading the business page about St. Arpey I see.
AA should rule the world with all that he had at his disposal, and don't worry he amassed a fortune before he left.
Chris...

[CAPFlyer]

No one at AMR has any class. If they did, they wouldn't have been in the situation they are in caused by multiple poorly considered decisions (keeping the F-100 over completing the B717 order and buying more, the whole Legend Airlines Fiasco, the American Eagle Anti-Trust lawsuit, the SAAB lease violations, caustic at best employee relations, uncomfortable at best investor relations, etc). They're the one airline that no one wants anything to do with other than through a 3rd party because they've done a lot of things worse than anything that Bozo Lorenzo ever thought of doing but got away with it because of their name, their reputation pre-1990, and the fact they've always had tons of cash on hand to throw around whenever someone tried to take them to task.

[cooper9411]

Could'nt have said it any better!

[the330thbg]

Agreed.., the last of the old school legacy carriers is about to bite the dust once and for all.

Good bye and good riddance!

[cwmc]

Of course I'm not kissing any WN butt. I detect some.
Chris...

[CAPFlyer]

Actually, no, my despise of AMR goes much, much deeper. It goes back to some of the antics they pulled in the late 1980s and early 1990's in addition to their horrid treatment of a legend of aviation like TWA and its staff who were just trying to survive and thought that becoming part of AMR was the only way to go only to find themselves banished from their own company's remnants within months and looking for jobs. Add to that the fact that they've never really done anything to help their corporate image because they continue to love to prove they've got the "biggest stick" by being the only airline I've ever heard of taking other airlines to court for just trying to exist and their use of American Eagle to price other airlines out of markets and existence (which, is illegal, problem is proving it definitively). They're not a malevolent leader of the US Airline industry they should be, they're the angry hammer who can't wait to find the next nail.

[Hemiman]

Hmmm...

"No one at AMR has any class"

"good riddance"...

Lets see:

2003- Pilots give back 900 Mil
FA's give back app 400 Mil
TWU gives back 700 Mil and in the next 3 years and additional 600 MIl in work rules and CI

Yep, No one has any class! AND probably a lot will see their jobs gone too..

We thank you for your support!

[CAPFlyer]

The pilots,FAs, and TWU aren't AMR, they're either employees of American Airlines or American Eagle. Big difference. I have sympathy for most of the workers of American Airlines and American Eagle. But the fact still remains, much of the Legacy Carrier problems come from their high overhead, partly caused by the unions who continued to demand more and more overhead items (not salary, but benefits) that really didn't help the employees long-term and straddled the airlines with costs on a scale not seen in any other industry but the automotive industry. Look where they are now too. The unions used to be a good thing, but they've gotten bigger than the corporations which they proportedly represent the employees off and as such, they've become as much of the problem as the corporations themselves. If you ever want to have your mind blown, try adding up the annual "donations" given by the various airline industry unions versus the amount of donations from the airlines to political campaigns and then tell me that the unions aren't "buying seats" too.

[Craig59]

"A rare man, a real stand up guy."

Another headline from a reporter who has no clue as to what he's talking about. Arpey was a CFO who never adapted to the leadership role of CEO. He and 100 of his minions flat out lied to their employees and together, raked in over 350 million dollars in bonus money over the same course of time the employees gave up billions - that's billions with a B - in order to save the company from bankruptcy.

There was no difference in the situation of the company which could have prevented them from their making 450 airplane purchase four or five years ago instead of only months ago except leadership and vision. It wasn't until Wall Street began to question AMR management - one reporter famously asking Arpey, "Is that all you've got?" - that they began to engage. Had the new aircraft been purchased years ago, the majority would have been on the property today and AA could have been saving hundreds of millions a year in fuel alone.

No, Arpey was not a rare man. Sadly, he is atypical of many of todays corporate leaders who reward themselves selfishly without any proven record of leadership.