American needs to can somebody – preferably CEO Arpey

And Planebuzz probably has it right: American CEO Gerald Arpey needs to go. Between not having a top exec speaking about this right away, through letting its corporate impression that American was being picked on lay out to rot in the sun, through finally using MARKETING exec (Dan Garton, American Airlines' executive vice president of marketing,) to face the heat, up to Arpey not having a press conference of his own before leaving Los Angeles to come back to DFW, this has been an AA clusterfuck.

I guess Arpey has another chance to redeem himself, or another chance to put his neck in the noose, dependent on whether your glass is half-empty or half-full. Per The Dallas Morning News airline blog, American could face a a second round of Federal Aviation Administration airworthiness compliance audits, according to Garton):

“My understanding is there were two phases of that audit and there will be additional audits of previously issued airworthiness directives. I guess that would be called Phase II.”

As for Arpey getting stranded in LA (poetic justice), why didn’t he cancel his conference in L.A. in the first place if he knew this was coming down the pike?

Meanwhile, American’s unions are a bunch of hugely unhappy campers.

At the same time, the executive performance bonuses Mitchell Schnurman mentions? I really don’t see how the board at American parent AMR can justify them.

Geez, it is not going to be a good summer to vacation out of D/FW Airport, is it? The only thing that could make it worse is a strike this summer.

Of course, Southwest doesn’t offer a great option at Love right now, either.