American Airlines Group Inc at JPMorgan Industrials Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Jamie Baker - JPMorgan - Analyst : I guess, I'll start. We have a shy audience this morning. So look, when Mark and I do these conferences, the goal isn't to engage in tit-for-tat, he said, she said kind of stuff. But you were in the room. You heard what Scott had to say. He is still -- Scott Kirby, CEO of United, for anybody listening. He is still of the view that the market can support two premium airlines, and the implication is that American is not one of those two. I assume you disagree. Why are you right?

Question: Jamie Baker - JPMorgan - Analyst : Thanks, Robert. Can you talk a little bit more about -- you had the bullet there on DCA and your market share. And can you talk a little bit about performance there in light of everything going on in Washington related to travel? That was also obviously where the accident was. And so the weakness that you're seeing there, is some of it attributed to the accident? Is most of it attributed to the government, obviously? And just how should we think about that, and how is that playing out?

Question: Jamie Baker - JPMorgan - Analyst : So -- and can we take that and lead us to sort of corporate travel recovery on the network, the Vasu unwind, whatever we want to call it, in terms of your attempts from over a year ago now, right, to just intermediate and sort of bringing back the direct booked corporate revenue. You're recovering; you're not yet fully recovered. Is the expectation that you will get fully recovered? Have you seen any -- is there any sort of -- do you think there's any reason for sort of permanent corporate share shift because of the experience that you've gone through?

Question: Jamie Baker - JPMorgan - Analyst : And last one for me -- and I'll turn it over to the crowd here, hopefully, for some questions -- Northeast Alliance, there's obviously some legal activity related to that, that I know you can't speak to directly. But maybe just bigger picture, can you talk about where you stand with that process? How important is it to do something, whether it's what the government allows or whether trying to rewrite what the government said was the path to go forward with that? What sort of thoughts can you add for your presence in the Northeast?

Question: Jamie Baker - JPMorgan - Analyst : So the last time I was at your headquarters was fall of last year. So you hadn't inked the new loyalty contract yet. You're still hitting the two partners off one another presumably. But one of the questions I asked you at the time was that was whether it was a priority to also be able to improve and expand the disclosures of the program. And you kind of shot me down. You're like economics first, first and foremost. And you've certainly given us high-level color on the improvements to the contract. Were there any changes in terms of what you can ultimately disclose going forward, that would better allow analysts and investors to actually begin modeling AAdvantage returns? I know Chase still puts a lot of handcuffs on what United could say. So my question is, Citi and American, can you give us more data?

Question: Jamie Baker - JPMorgan - Analyst : Thank you. Devon, we spoke a little bit with Mike Leskinen at United before your presentation about balance sheet strategy, that shifted United from not targeting investment grade to now targeting investment grade. The question I want to ask American about the balance sheet strategy is, you set these deleveraging targets. Yet if we run the math on your free cash flow -- we've written about this and talked about it a little bit -- but there's still some wiggle room in there for capital return to shareholders. So when you think about the industry environment, how you're thinking about when is the right time to sort of flip the switch and how are you trying to balance those debt reduction goals, you're going to have a choice whether to tighten those further or to turn that switch back on and return capital to shareholders. So what's the debate like internally, and how are you thinking about it?

Question: Jamie Baker - JPMorgan - Analyst : And one question we didn't get a chance to talk about with United that I want to ask you because you, obviously, have aircraft on order from both manufacturers. But with Boeing specifically out of Seattle, for you or Robert, are you reacting favorably to the change of regime there and what you're hearing out of Seattle? Obviously, you've had 787s that have been on constant delay. Are you feeling better about Boeing's ability to deliver airplanes to you on time?