American Airlines and US Airways confirm $11bn merger
American Airlines and US Airways have announced plans to merge, in a deal that would form the world’s biggest airline.
The move had been widely touted after the two boards were said to have met on Wednesday.
The merger will bring American Airlines closer in value to rival Delta Airlines, with an estimated market valuation of $11bn.
The carrier will be run under the American Airlines brand, but the chief executive will be the current US Airways boss, Doug Parker.
“The combined airline will have the scale, breadth and capabilities to compete more effectively and profitably in the global marketplace,” he said in a statement.
“Our combined network will provide a significantly more attractive offering to customers, ensuring that we are always able to take them where they want to go.”
American Airlines fleet
Aircraft
In service
Orders
Passengers
Notes
F
J
W
Y
Total
Airbus A319-100
0
11
TBA
Intended to replace MD-80 First delivery in July of 2013
Airbus A321-200 Transcon
0
119
10
20
36
36
102
Replacing 767-200ER First delivery in 2014
Airbus A321-200
0
TBA
Replacing 757-200 Domestic. First delivery in 2014
Airbus A320ne Family
0
130
TBA
Intended to replace MD-80 and 757–200 Domestic First delivery in 2017
Boeing 737–800
199
108
TBA
Replacing MD-80s.
Boeing 737 MAX 8
0
100
TBA
Replacing MD-80s.
Boeing 757–200 Domestic
84
0
0
Old: 22 New: 24
0
166
Old: 188 New: 190
Intended to be replaced by: Airbus A319, A321, A320neo, Boeing 737–800, Boeing 737 MAX
Boeing 757–200 International
18
16
0
182
Boeing 767-200ER
12
0
10
30
0
128
168
To be replaced by A321 Transcon
Boeing 767-300ER
58
0
0
0
195
225
Half of fleet will be phased out beginning in 2015, other half will be refitted with a two-class seating
Boeing 777-200ER
47
5
16
37
0
194
247
All 777-200s to be converted to a two-class configuration with full flat beds in the new Business Class.
Boeing 777-300ER
3
12
8
52
30
220
310
To be delivered between December 2012 and 2013 First flight January 31, 2013
Boeing 787-8
0
20
TBA
Replacing Boeing 767s
Boeing 787-9
0
22
TBA
Replacing Boeing 767s
McDonnell Douglas MD-82
102
0
0
16
0
124
140
Intended to be replaced by: Airbus A319, A321, A320neo, Boeing 737–800
McDonnell Douglas MD-83
82
0
Largest operator of the MD-83 Intended to be replaced by: Airbus A319, A321, A320neo, Boeing 737–800
Total
604
528
US Airways fleet
Aircraft
Total
Orders
Passengers
Notes
J
F
Y
Total
Airbus A319-100
93
—
—
12
112
124
Largest operator worldwide of A320 family of aircraft (includes A319-A320-A321)
Airbus A320-200
72
—
—
12
138
150
Largest operator worldwide of A320 family of aircraft (includes A319-A320-A321)
Airbus A321-200
75
42
—
16
171
187
Replacing Boeing 737, Deliveries until 2016. Largest operator worldwide of A321 itself.
Airbus A330-200
7
8
20
—
238
258
All feature Envoy Suite.
Airbus A330-300
9
—
28
—
263
293
All feature Envoy Suite.
Airbus A350-800
—
18
36
—
234
270
Entry into service: 2017 First US airline to order A350
Airbus A350-900
—
4
36
—
294
330
Entry into service: 2017
Boeing 737-400
32
—
—
12
132
144
To be phased out and replaced by A321s. Retirement: 2012-2014. Piedmont Airlines, which merged with USAir, operated B737-400 aircraft as well.
Boeing 757-200 Domestic ETOPS
9
—
—
14
176
190
Retirement: 2016-2017
Boeing 757-200 International ETOPS
15
—
12
—
164
176
Retirement: 2018-2020. Features recliners with electronic controls and leg rests in Envoy.
Boeing 767-200ER
10
—
18
—
186
204
Retirement: 2017, to be replaced by the Airbus A330-200. Features angled lie-flat suites in Envoy. Former Piedmont Airlines aircraft that were obtained via the merger by USAir with this air carrier.
Embraer 190
18
—
—
11
88
99
Twenty-three (23) orders were subsequently cancelled due to new A321 deliveries.
Robert Mugabe, the lifelong dictator of Zimbabwe, took his country from being a prosperous nation to a basket case during his 40 year rule.
Zimbabwe Has Just $217 In The Bank, Finance Minister Says
There’s a lot you can buy with $200 if you’re one person. There’s not whole lot you can do with it if you’re one nation, however.
Zimbabwe has just $217 in the bank after paying civil servants last week, Agence France Presse reports. While the amount is a stunningly low balance for an entire nation, it was somewhat expected.
The African nation has been struggling to recover from hyperinflation that stretches back a decade. In the past few years, flagging diamond exports as well as salary hikes have compounded the nation’s financial woes, according to the Globe and Mail.
The country finds itself in particularly dire straits now as it appears to be short on funding for its upcoming national elections. Zimbabwe is aiming to double exports of diamonds this year but that likely won’t be enough to bail itself out.
“We will be approaching the international community [for financial assistance],” Finance Minister Tendai Biti told the AFP.
The country couldn’t afford 2 tickets to a Jets game.
IF YOU’VE ever suspected politics is increasingly being run in the interests of big business, I have news: Jeffrey Sachs, a highly respected economist from Columbia University, agrees with you – at least in respect of the United States.
In his book, The Price of Civilisation, he says the US economy is caught in a feedback loop. ”Corporate wealth translates into political power through campaign financing, corporate lobbying and the revolving door of jobs between government and industry; and political power translates into further wealth through tax cuts, deregulation and sweetheart contracts between government and industry. Wealth begets power, and power begets wealth,” he says.
Sachs says four key sectors of US business exemplify this feedback loop and the takeover of political power in America by the ”corporatocracy”.
First is the well-known military-industrial complex. ”As [President] Eisenhower famously warned in his farewell address in January 1961, the linkage of the military and private industry created a political power so pervasive that America has been condemned to militarisation, useless wars and fiscal waste on a scale of many tens of trillions of dollars since then,” he says.
Second is the Wall Street-Washington complex, which has steered the financial system towards control by a few politically powerful Wall Street firms, notably Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and a handful of other financial firms.
These days, almost every US Treasury secretary – Republican or Democrat – comes from Wall Street and goes back there when his term ends. The close ties between Wall Street and Washington ”paved the way for the 2008 financial crisis and the mega-bailouts that followed, through reckless deregulation followed by an almost complete lack of oversight by government”.
Third is the Big Oil-transport-military complex, which has put the US on the trajectory of heavy oil-imports dependence and a deepening military trap in the Middle East, he says.
”Since the days of John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Trust a century ago, Big Oil has loomed large in American politics and foreign policy. Big Oil teamed up with the automobile industry to steer America away from mass transit and towards gas-guzzling vehicles driving on a nationally financed highway system.”
Big Oil has consistently and successfully fought the intrusion of competition from non-oil energy sources, including nuclear, wind and solar power.
It has been at the side of the Pentagon in making sure that America defends the sea-lanes to the Persian Gulf, in effect ensuring a $US100 billion-plus annual subsidy for a fuel that is otherwise dangerous for national security, Sachs says.
”And Big Oil has played a notorious role in the fight to keep climate change off the US agenda. Exxon-Mobil, Koch Industries and others in the sector have underwritten a generation of anti-scientific propaganda to confuse the American people.”
Fourth is the healthcare industry, America’s largest industry, absorbing no less than 17 per cent of US gross domestic product.
”The key to understanding this sector is to note that the government partners with industry to reimburse costs with little systematic oversight and control,” Sachs says. ”Pharmaceutical firms set sky-high prices protected by patent rights; Medicare [for the aged] and Medicaid [for the poor] and private insurers reimburse doctors and hospitals on a cost-plus basis; and the American Medical Association restricts the supply of new doctors through the control of placements at medical schools.
”The result of this pseudo-market system is sky-high costs, large profits for the private healthcare sector, and no political will to reform.”
Now do you see why the industry put so much effort into persuading America’s punters that Obamacare was rank socialism? They didn’t succeed in blocking it, but the compromised program doesn’t do enough to stop the US being the last rich country in the world without universal healthcare.
It’s worth noting that, despite its front-running cost, America’s healthcare system doesn’t leave Americans with particularly good health – not as good as ours, for instance. This conundrum is easily explained: America has the highest-paid doctors.
Sachs says the main thing to remember about the corporatocracy is that it looks after its own. ”There is absolutely no economic crisis in corporate America.
”Consider the pulse of the corporate sector as opposed to the pulse of the employees working in it: corporate profits in 2010 were at an all-time high, chief executive salaries in 2010 rebounded strongly from the financial crisis, Wall Street compensation in 2010 was at an all-time high, several Wall Street firms paid civil penalties for financial abuses, but no senior banker faced any criminal charges, and there were no adverse regulatory measures that would lead to a loss of profits in finance, health care, military supplies and energy,” he says.
The 30-year achievement of the corporatocracy has been the creation of America’s rich and super-rich classes, he says. And we can now see their tools of trade.
”It began with globalisation, which pushed up capital income while pushing down wages. These changes were magnified by the tax cuts at the top, which left more take-home pay and the ability to accumulate greater wealth through higher net-of-tax returns to saving.”
Chief executives then helped themselves to their own slice of the corporate sector ownership through outlandish awards of stock options by friendly and often handpicked compensation committees, while the Securities and Exchange Commission looked the other way. It’s not all that hard to do when both political parties are standing in line to do your bidding, Sachs concludes.
The North American addiction to mass consumption shows its ugly face on Black Friday. Some of these consumer idiots camp out on the sidewalk for many hours to get the first chance at the discounted oak table or new Ipad. Many get trampled by the crush as the doors to the retail cathedrals are opened. Fights break out as many shopaholics miss out on their materialistic fix.
Black Friday is an American phenomenon where retailers lower their prices substantially the day after Thanksgiving. Now Canadian retailers are jumping on the bandwagon. Even though the Canadian Thanksgiving was weeks before, these retailers smell blood as Black Friday approaches. Canadians are no different than Americans, both are addicted to buying new stuff. It makes them feel good for a few hours. Especially if there is a great deal to be had.
This Conservative regime is more mean spirited than I imagined. They are firing 20,000 federal employees, many who are in their 50′s and 60′s, and who will have a hell of a time finding a comparable job. They are slashing hundreds of jobs in the federal parks system and cutting federal environmental watchdog departments.
And now they are implementing provisions into Bill-C38 that would force laid off professionals to take any job available. Minimum wage jobs flipping burgers. If the laid off engineer doesn’t take the burger flipping job he could lose his employment insurance benefits. No training opportunities, just take any job. As James Flaherty the Minister of Finance said ” the only bad job is not having a job.”
Three more years of this reactionary right-wing regime. May God help us all!
While critics of the Harper government’s omnibus budget implementation bill rail against the legislation’s alleged attacks on environmental reviews, they might also want to pay attention to the parts of the bill that deal with employment insurance.
According to an article in the Globe and Mail, Bill C-38 would remove provisions of the Employment Insurance Act that allow EI recipients to turn down an available job if it is not in the claimant’s usual occupation, is at a lower rate of pay or involves “conditions less favourable than those … recognized by good employers.”
In other words, once the bill passes, cabinet (in theory) will have the power to deny EI to an unemployed scientist for refusing to dig ditches or pick fruit.
Ottawa isn’t saying exactly what it has in mind, notes the report, but Immigration Minister Jason Kenney recently expressed his frustration that Prince Edward Island was bringing in temporary foreign workers to fill fish plant jobs even though many Canadians in the area are unemployed.
Neil Cohen, executive director of Winnipeg’s Community Unemployed Help Centre, said he’s deeply concerned by the the new rules.
“It’s always been up to the courts to determine what constitutes suitable employment,” he told the Globe and Mail.
“This government is determined to reverse the course of 70 years of history … They’re really giving themselves broad, sweeping powers.”
Meanwhile, the Conservatives passed a motion Thursday limiting second-reading debate on Bill C-38 to seven days, infuriating the opposition parties who said it was far too little time to discuss the implications of the broad, 425-page bill.
“The number of measures that are going to fundamentally change how Canada works — and doesn’t work, in fact — are all in this budget bill,” NDP house leader Nathan Cullen told CBC News.
“It’s an abuse of their power. It’s an abuse of this mechanism. And the government knows it.”
In addition to the changes in employment insurance, Bill C-38 includes controversial changes to old age security, more than 100 pages of new provisions to environmental regulations, an important alterationto the oversight of CSIS and significant amendments in laws related to fisheries, food safety, national parks and natural resource projects.
External debt is that part of the total debt in a country that is owed to creditors outside the country. The debtors can be the government, corporations or private households…, the total public and private debt owed to nonresidents repayable in foreign currency, goods, or services, where the public debt is the money or credit owed by any level of government, from central to local, and the private debt the money or credit owed by private households or private corporations based in the country under consideration.
For informational purposes several non-sovereign entities are also included in this list. Note that this list is gross debt, not net debt.
Sources:
The World Factbook, United States Central Intelligence Agency, The World Bank.
The Occupy Wall Street movement has become a phenomenon across the globe. It is an anti-corporate movement protesting corporate love of money. When people think of corporations they think of a few top executives that make all the decisions related to the company. But most corporations are publicly traded and have shareholders as the main policy directors. The shareholders vote on company policy and strategy and ultimately direct the company.
On 60 Minutes last week there was a story on Jeffrey R. Immelt, the chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the U.S.-based conglomerate General Electric. GE has been moving many jobs to foreign countries to take advantage of lower wages. The 60 Minutes journalist asked Immelt if he felt an obligation to try to keep jobs in the United States. Immelt responded that he did, he would like to keep jobs in the U.S., as an American he felt a responsibility to help his people. But Immelt went on to say that ultimately he had to answer to the shareholders, and the shareholders only care about the bottom line, they are in it only to make a profit. Shareholders are greedy individuals that are basically gambling that their company will make profitable dividends for them. Then the shareholders can retire comfortably and move to Florida.
The avaricious man is like the barren sandy ground of the desert which sucks in all the rain and dew with greediness, but yields no fruitful herbs or plants for the benefit of others —Zeno
One has to look out for him or herself. But the greed tendency is way to powerful in most people. Desire for things is powerful. Excessive desire to acquire or possess more (especially more material wealth) than what is necessary is what Wall Street capitalists and greedy shareholders represent. There is more to life than material gluttony.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is expected to seek a new base tax rate for the wealthy to ensure that millionaires pay at least at the same percentage as middle income taxpayers.
A White House official said the proposal would be included in the president’s proposal for long term deficit reduction that he will announce Monday. The official spoke anonymously because the plan has not been officially announced.
Obama is going to call it the “Buffett Rule” for Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who has complained that rich people like him pay a smaller share of their income in federal taxes than middle-class taxpayers.
Many right-winger in the U.S., including House speaker John Boehner, Tea Party old farts and every conservative loud mouth in between, are saying it is an attack on the financially successful. Is paying a few extra thousand dollars a year in taxes going to cause the millionaires to cut back on caviar? I doubt it. People with oodles of money should pay their fair share. Quit being so selfish, and take a very small one for the country. After all, there a few millionaires in the United States.
There is a wide disparity in the estimates of the number of millionaires residing currently in the United States. A quarterly report prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit on behalf of Barclays Wealth in 2007 estimated that there were 16,600,000 dollar millionaires in the USA.
That holy Mammon can make people end it all. There is more to life than money! Mammon definition: Oxford defines: god of wealth, regarded as evil or immoral; ‘those who worship mammon’ are equivalent to greedy people who value money too highly. Webster’s dictionary defines “Mammon” or “Mann” as: 1) the false god of riches and avarice. 2) riches regarded as an object of worship and greedy pursuit; wealth as an evil, more or less personified.
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korean police say a stock broker has jumped off a high-rise residential building to his death after he apparently suffered heavy losses in the global markets turmoil.
Chief investigator Lee Kang-ho said Wednesday that a 48-year-old man surnamed Seo sent his colleagues text messages expressing remorse over the losses just minutes before he jumped from the building.
The suspected suicide took place in the southeastern city of Daegu. Lee said Seo’s text messages included an apology to his clients. No separate suicide note was found.
South Korean stocks have fallen sharply amid global financial turmoil fanned by worries over the future of the U.S. economy.
South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the developed world.
Add Michael Moore to the list of critics railing against Standard & Poor’s cut to America’s credit rating. Only the fiery social commentator and film director takes it one step further: He wants the head of S&P arrested. On his Twitter feed Monday, Moore wrote: “Pres Obama, show some guts & arrest the CEO of Standard & Poors. These criminals brought down the economy in 2008& now they will do it again.” . The 2008 reference is apparently because S&P and other rating agencies did not downgrade mortgage-based bonds, which encouraged the housing bubble behind the subprime crisis, says the Washington Times. “Owners of S&P are old Bush family friends,” Moore writes in another Tweet, touching on a theme he developed in several movies slamming capitalism for being a old boys’ club for the rich and Wall Street. Moore may have started something. Tuesday morning, Business Insider reports, a plane flew by the S&P offices in New York dragging a banner behind it saying: ”THANKS FOR THE DOWNGRADE. YOU SHOULD ALL BE FIRED.”
Delta Air Lines
Lufthansa Group
Air France-KLM
China Southern Airlines
International Airlines Group
Air Canada
