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As to our turn if you're going to participate in that level of recovery then you
should expect the pilots of the company to do the same one of the big
incendiary issues which comes as no surprise to you is bonus again. Well we
have equity based compensation at American just like every company in
corporate America and our stock price has increased very dramatically over the
past few years so our executives have reaped the benefit of that my job is to try
to do what is right based on market and it's not all bad that the stock is done as
well as it has hey Mary Barbi received the 23% raised this past spring bringing
his base salary before stock options to six hundred and fifty thousand dollars a
year relative to your competitive CEOs or other companies. I'd have to say
you're probably underpaid. Do you agree when you leave it donation on the way
out the guys on the floor don't begrudge RP or any other executives getting paid
whatever they're worth but these socalled business partners want their piece of
the pie. You've got the guys in the suits that make the decision that get your
gains from performance when the actual performance is being done. So we're
doing the work and they're getting the bonuses it doesn't sit well I talked to your
guys on the line what did they say to me where's ours give me some yeah what
are you gonna do now our collective bargaining agreement ends and is that open
for renewal in 2008. My goal is to build this company's pockets full of money
and then when 2008 rolls around I want to stick my hands in their pockets
coming up one of the enduring mysteries of air travel finally explain hello is
oneway fare $129 that's $1,025. Why you paid a bundle for your ticket while
the guy next to you got a bargain that's next as inside American Airlines a week
in the life continues? I think one of the key merits of the channel is the quality
and the caliber of the guests that we get on I think we're able to sit back and
even though we are in the middle of all of this live action that's happening we
can still keep a level head on and, and sometimes see things from a different
perspective. It's irreverent at times but always it's intelligent and it's in full
CIO's tunnel to CNBC because they know that they're amongst friends and yet
they know to that they're going to get a fairly rigorous examination of what is
going on in their business and they're not scared of that having live data
following the market and their reaction to it feels like being alive if you're an
investor you'll always have questions about your portfolio but do you have
access to the fund managers the strategists another market specialists well now's
your chance communicate directly with us on our panel of experts it couldn't be
easier your question to Power Lunch Europe at cnbc.com and then make an
appointment for our investors clinic in power lunch Europe every Friday at
12:30 CET. We've now returned to inside American Airlines a week in the life
the lowest oneway fare would be 129 dollars and 30 cents and that would
include thousand dollars looking at four thousand six hundred and twentytwo
dollars and sixty cents listening to American Airlines reservations agents and
the enormous array of prices and fees is enough to give you altitude sickness
that's a hundred dollar change fee plus the difference of fare which is a hundred
and fifty four dollars so of course if you booked it with me would be to turn
down the reservation service fee they handle about two hundred and thirty
thousand calls a day but with ticket prices up roughly thirteen percent over the
past year many travelers are looking everywhere for bargains even online
Americans website boasts the lowest fare guarantee but what are you likely to
find the same baffling hodgepodge of prices two hundred eighty eight dollars
Wow where did that come from I usually pay 450 christena transom actually did
get her deal on a roundtrip ticket from Hartford to Dallas on a a.com she makes
the journey several times a month from her home in Connecticut to her office in
Texas her latest find that two hundred eighty eight dollar fare is one of the
lowest CC and the most eleven hundred dollars for the very same seat it's not
just the ticket prices vary from day to day as experienced travelers know prices
can vary from seat to seat and on the very same flight it's understandable that
firstclass costs more than coach but what's more annoying than finding out
when you're sitting in seat 23a that the guy sitting in 23b is travelling on a ticket
that costs hundreds of dollars less than yours a little later we'll show you one
particular flight and tell you exactly how much each passenger paid and the
range Affairs is astounded it may not make sense to travelers but it makes
perfect sense dollars and cents to the airline Americans former CEO Bob
Crandall explains because you know from experience if somebody will appear
at 4:30 who wants to go at 5 o'clock any put a price on that to reflect the value
of that last minute transportation so all of the cropping and yapping and yelling
about the fact that this guy in this seat paid a different price in the guy and this
see as always struck me as foolish of course he did you brought it at different
times and therefore it had a different value so Crandall defends the system today
back in 1992 he tried to change it and introduced a program called value pricing
that involved only four fares for any given flight we've simply decided that we
need to change the way we do business when you came out with value pricing
someone argued that was not a success well in fact it was a huge success that is
only until competitors undercut American with lower prices forcing the airline
to give up value pricing so today it's back to the more complicated system Scott
Mason is Americans pricing guru the vice president of revenue management
now revenue management most pastors have no idea what that means and
people even in the industry look at it as like the dark science well it's pretty
complicated as seats get sold and as cancellations get made the selling fair can
change automatically in addition I have a staff of people who are looking at the
flights and making using their own judgment to modify what the computer
thinks and either changing the values so that the pair goes up or down how
many different fares a day are you updating we would typically change tens of
thousands of fares in a day well the best fare we would have would be one
hundred fifty eight dollars and sixty cents it's a complicated system
encompassing Americans twenty two hundred flights a day as well as another
eighteen hundred daily flights from its regional service American Eagle like a
lot of carriers American uses a handful of major cities or hubs as connecting
points for all of those flights and the airline's computers will set some seats
aside for passengers making connections through those hubs it's those longhaul
passengers that are the airline's bread and butter we may say the FWD Austin is
sold out but if you want to go from London Austin that's that same DFW
Dolphin flight is still available you might hold back some of those seats because
of connecting passengers we are consciously avoiding selling short haul local if
there's any reasonable chance that it's going to displace longer haul passengers
who need that connecting spoke to get a better idea of how American works to
maximize its revenue just take a look at American 2412 the same flight
Christina transom takes from Dallas Fort Worth to Hartford Connecticut yes
very much so like many of Americans planes flight 2412 is full in fact it's over
so in exchange for $300 travel vouchers thank you very much overselling is a
common practice aimed at assuring that no seat goes unsold and now there are
even more of those seats to sell on its 737800 like the one we're about to fly
American has squeezed in six extra seats since doing away with its more room
and coach campaign CEO Gerard RT says they had to add more seats because
they couldn't make up the revenue without them what we found was people
weren't willing to pay that extra $15 in coach so now it's less room in coach
well it's comparable to our competitors lesser than coach but let's get back to
ticket prices working with American we were able to figure out how much each
coach passenger on flight 2412 paid for his or her ticket aside from the nine
passengers who traveled on frequent flyer miles and the one employee who flew
free the disparity and what people paid to fly was amazing ten passengers paid
less than $50 fifty three paid between 50 and 100 dollars 30 between 100 and
200 dollars 16 paid between 200 and 400 dollars six paid between 400 and 700
dollars and guess what five paid upwards of $700 people like Matthew DuPont
who booked at the last minute and Morgan Smith paid just over $800 the
highest price and coach in fact higher than anyone even in firstclass. I'm lucky
I'm just happy to be that coming from a man who paid eight times more than the
guy sitting right next to him he got a deal for less than 100. This is what
American calls simplified pricing but with 66 different fares on flight 2412
alone it seems pretty complicated to us aboard flight 24 12 passengers are
looking forward to their arrival and Americans bean counters are already
calculating how much the airline made or lost on this flight all told flight 24 12
brought in twenty six thousand four hundred dollars in tickets excess baggage
fees Freight liquor sales and other revenue sources when you subtract the
eighteen thousand dollars it cost the airline for fuel maintenance pilots and
flight attendant salaries and other expenses flight 24 12 was a winner earning
eight thousand four hundred dollars for American though it might not sound like
much it's actually a pretty good profit for a single flight but what's a trip from
Dallas to Hartford Worth two passengers. That depends on what's waiting for
you when you get there. Coming up. swarm clouds in the sky the ramp is closed
through lightning a medical emergency in the air all I have is a passenger with
a rapid heartbeat a tense night at operations control next as inside American
Airlines a week in the life continues a winner designer at CNBC you it's five
o'clock in Brussels a very good afternoon to you live from London Spain from
Milan. How are you able to be so upbeat about the future security situation.