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Posted Sept 1, 2010
The big news from last week was not that United and Continental passed Department of Justice scrutiny. It was that they did it by giving Southwest an incredible gift. In a behind-the-scenes deal, Southwest was granted 36 slots at Newark from Continental as part of a slot divestiture that cleared the merger of the DOJ's one area of concern. As a result, the DOJ dropped anti-trust proceedings and the merger has cleared a major hurdle on its way to approval.
Posted Jul 27, 2010
This week we take in-depth looks at the recent earnings results posted by American Airlines, US Airways, United Airlines, Continental Airlines and Delta Air Lines. Even before the formal announcement was issued this morning, it had been clear for some time that United Airlines president John Tague was not a member of the executive transition team that was going to stay with the "new" United. That fact was also crystal clear as you listened to the airline's earnings call last week.
This morning, the airline formally announced that John, Kathryn Mikells, Graham Atkinson, and Rosemary Moore would not be staying with the "new" United.
Posted Jul 20, 2010
United Airlines parent UAL Corp. posted a second quarter profit of $273 million, emerging from a long financial slump and improving on some closely watched year-over-two numbers. The company cited favorable corporate and premium booking trends and particularly strong transoceanic performance. Analysts speaking with the company's executives on a Tuesday conference call sounded generally impressed. UAL's stock closed the day up more than a buck to $22.01. Why? According to UAL executives, capacity discipline and fees.
Posted May 24, 2010
Business Travel Coalition (BTC) has long viewed airline mergers and industry consolidation with a good measure of skepticism regarding anticipated benefits for all stakeholders. While we are still working to formulate a public position on the proposed Continental (CO) – United (UA) merger, there are several areas of concern worth noting ahead of U.S. Senate and House hearings that suggest the antitrust analysis should go beyond management spin that this is an end-to-end network combination made in heaven that will drive benefits for all and that should be approved post haste.
Posted May 12, 2010
The recent announcement of the merger between United Airlines and Continental Airlines, right on the heels of the marriage of Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines, sent a lot of folks scrambling to make sense of a new landscape of suppliers in the airline industry. One thing is for certain, competition will be reduced, which will eventually lead to higher consumer prices. But more importantly, the chasm between the behemoths and the rest of the industry just got significantly wider and what that means to corporate travel and meeting programs is anyone’s guess. Will that mean some shotgun weddings for stand-alones like American Airlines, US Air, Alaska, Southwest, etc.? Time will tell…
Posted Apr 13, 2010
Mergers in the Air...
Goodness, gracious! We have a lot to talk about this week. United and US Airways have announced they are in serious merger discussions. I honestly think my chances of winning the Masters are greater than the chances of this merger actually happening. The list of reasons why United and US Air cannot pull off this merger is longer than my arm, and I have long arms:
Posted Apr 7, 2010
For what it's worth, we've been hit by a number of emails in the last hour concerning a possible announcement regarding a move by US Airways on United Airlines. While this would certainly be big news, for those of you who follow the industry (and hopefully by reading PlaneBusiness Banter), you shouldn't be surprised. Yee haw. I hope these rumors are spot on. I'm tired of reading emails about diaper bags and charging for carryons.
Posted Apr 2, 2010
Posted Jan 22, 2010
UAL Corp. chairman and CEO Glenn Tilton spoke at the airline industry's Wings Club in New York Thursday, and focused his prepared comments on familiar topics: taxes are excessive, infrastructure is inadequate, regulation is outdated and industry behavior is dysfunctional. He talked about possible industry consolidation, but was reluctant to answer analysts' and reporters' questions about the JAL saga beyond saying he hopes it continues to be a distraction for his two primary competitors. Tilton also answered a few questions of mine on corporate accounts and information technology.
Posted Oct 13, 2009
United just announced that they will allow unlimited complimentary upgrades for all Mileage Plus elite members. Not only that, but in an email from United, they make the elite benefits of the Mileage Plus program pretty clear vs. the competition. We haven't seen this aggressive of competitive positioning (by name, no less) from an airline in a long time - remember the Shuttle wars?
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