Pursuing the Merger American Airlines declared bankruptcy in late 2011,5 having lost $1.9 billion on $24.9 billion in revenue while running 3,700 flights per day. In contrast, US Airways had earned $627 million that same year on revenues of $13.8 billion with 3,200 flights per day. Parker, Kirby, and the US Airways executive team including the then Chief Operating Officer Robert Isom; Executive Vice President Corporate Affairs Stephen Johnson; Chief Financial Officer Derek Kerr; and Executive Vice PresidentPeople Elise Eberweinhad begun pursuing a merger soon after the bankruptcy. Rebuffed by Horton, Parker and Kirby entered secret talks with American's major employee unionspilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and eet service clerksand with American's most important creditors. Because of bankruptcy court filings, Parker knew What American was offering its unions, which enabled US Airways to make a better offer.6 On April 20, 2012, Parker announced, through a press release and an SEC filing, that US Airways had obtained signed agreements with each of the three unions, representing over 50,000 American workers, on what their contracts would look like should a merger take place.7 (This, in itself, was unusual. Labor rarely supported mergers, since they typically led to job cuts?) American planned to eliminate 13,000 jobs and cut or reduce pension and healthcare benefits. Parker, by contrast, believed he could save at least 6,200 of those jobs.9 The estimated equity value of the combined company was $11 billion. 10 Annual savings were expected to top $1 billion. (See Exhibit 1 for routes, Exhibit 2 for financials, and Exhibit 3 for operating comparisons.) \"The Band of Brothers\" + One Ten months later, after the three agreements were signed, Parker and his top executives had already made a series of operational and design decisions to prepare for integration. Many key questions were already answered. Among the most important issues that still remained, however, were those involving the senior management team. These were not only critical to the leadership of the new airline, but they were the first step in selecting the \"down the line" management that would head the combined operations. Parker would soon have to name his final top team, the one that would complete the integration and run the world's largest airline. In making this call, he faced three interrelated issues. The first was the extent to which AAL should retain executives who best knew the major operating systems. Given the size difference between the two airlines and the likelihood that many of the operating and organization processes of the \"new American" would be based upon existing legacy American systems, Parker had to consider to what degree he needed to retain and leverage key American Csuite executives. Those executives had experience with an airline of global scale committed to multi-country, multifleet operations, with deep experience working with unions and large numbers of frontline employees. The second was Parker's belief in the abilities, camaraderie, and shared experiences of the close- knit management team at US Airways. Together, they had weathered the America West / US Airways merger as well as the successful turnaround of US Airways that followed. Many of them were longtime friends. Isom was a University of Michigan alum and member of the core team from Northwest who had rejoined US Airways as Head of Operations after a short stint at GMAC LLC (the finance arm of General Motors). He and CFO Derek Kerr had been graduate school classmates at the University of Michigan. Parker and Kerr had grown up next door to each other, and Kerr's brother was a high school friend of Parker's. Parker and Isom had worked at Northwest in the early 1990s. When Parker left Northwest in 1993 for America West, he joined President Scott Kirby who, at the time, was a rising star in the revenue management field. Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs Steve Johnson was part of the original America West team that recruited Parker. \"There is a lot of familiarity and a little bit of competitiveness," Isom noted. \"We know what is important and everybody' S strengths and limitations. We are all pretty direct and when we fight we know how others will react. Finally, we have great confidence in our ability to execute. Ours is not a traditional CEO to senior team relationship; it is more informal and more familial.\" Essential to the team was former flight attendant and communications executive Elise Eberwein, who had joined the others at America West in 2003 as Vice President, Communications. By 2009, Eberwein had added overseeing all people, communications, and public affairs for US Airways to her responsibilities. Hailed as the \"glue that holds the team together," she was described as the \"voice of the frontline employee\" on Parker's leadership team. The third issue was the challenge and likely impact of building a team from combatants who had been on opposite sides of the courtroom in bankruptcy and merger proceedings. Particularly visible would be the prospective role for Horton. He had extensive industry experience and was viewed by many of the legacy American staff as representative of the pride and excellence that they felt for the current American operation. Former American Treasurer Beverly Goulet was widely viewed as highly qualified to be the next CFO. Yet Parker's close relationship with Kerr was such that in the interim, Parker named her to help lead the integration. American's government affairs strategy was also top of mind given longtime American executive Will Ris's visibility and bipartisan respect in Washington. Finally, as legacy American CIO, Maya Leibman knew well the capabilities of the American IT systems and had a broad knowledge of its suite of systems as well as detailed knowledge of its strengths and vulnerabilities. Yet most of the US Airways IT operations were going to remain in Phoenix, while Leibman lived and worked in Dallas