American Airlines stumbled in announcing bankruptcy to investors
In terms of investor relations, the airline, which filed for bankruptcy protection this week, gets a failing grade. Good news is that it’s still early in the process.
Perpetually low customer service scores have led to endless jokes about what it means to be an AA passenger. Shareholders, however, aren’t laughing. The company didn’t get high marks for investor relations during its bankruptcy announcement on Tuesday.
It’s bad enough that, according to Corporate Secretary, American Airlines’ parent company AMR is saddled with $3.2 billion in debt and fewer and fewer ways to cut costs (especially labor). The CEO has stepped down, unsurprisingly, and the new top dog previously served as CFO. For such big changes—from executive changes to a bankruptcy filing—the company doesn’t seem to have done much to communicate with its shareholders.
I got the feeling fairly early in the morning on Tuesday that AMR was going to miss the investor relations boat. I saw this tweet from @FLYiR: “American Airlines files for bankruptcy and I can’t find anything on the Investor Relations site?”
She later updated that she had found it, but “had to dig though …”
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