Illustrator: Make a compound path a single path

Question

I have the letter "a" expanded as two paths, one being the letter and the other being the circle inside of the "a"

I need to get the "a" to be a single, simple path. When I use pathfinder > minus front, I get the desired result but as a compound path.

Is there any way to get the compound path to be just a path?

Thanks!

Answer 1

No. That's the long and the short of it. As soon as a path consists of more than one continuous line, it has to be a compound path.