America West has been struggling to achieve any semblance of operational reliability for close to a year now. Management has been talking about reliability, and now it looks like they're going to put some money into it. |
The breadth of the increase currently is substantially less than the earlier increases, insofar as it only applies to sale fares, which are only available for the sale for next seven days, and it excludes Northwest markets. The increases are primarily only other airlines' hub markets. |
There's a reason paying more than 20-plus times forward earnings has been on balance a desultory experience for overeager investors. It's not good business -- the airline business that is. |
We think it's been done in such a way that it's likely to stick. |
With the decreased ownership interest, American and others will be more vigorous in trying to control distribution costs going to the CRS. |