Others, such as United and American, went through repeated bankruptcies as they struggled to bring costs down. Meanwhile, salaries and benefits for staff at established carriers were seriously eroded.
American Airlines, alone of the U.S. legacy carriers, has never been in bankruptcy. United, Delta, Northwest, and Continental (twice) went through a voluntary bankruptcy process in order to shed costs, leaving the creditors with losses, employees with lower wages, reduced health benefits, minimum pensions, and stricter T&C - and the stockholders with nothing. TWA, Eastern, Braniff and PanAm went out of business or were forced to merge, with all of the stakeholders getting next-to-nothing.
As a result, when compared to other U.S. airlines, AA is saddled with the highest relative labor costs and the most unproductive T&C, among all of its labor groups. In addition it still performs all of its maintenance with its own employees, while the other airlines were able to close their bases and use lower cost contract firms, many in Asia and Central America.
Sorry for the thread drift, but I couldn't let the quoted statement go uncorrected.