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Posted Jul 1, 2010
It's confirmed: Google has agreed to buy ITA Software for $700 million cash. ITA co-founder and CEO Jeremy Wertheimer will stay on. He told me Google is "pretty interested in talking to airlines and getting their views" on ITA's res system business, but he was unable in a short phone call just now to say whether Google plans to integrate ITA's airfare shopping results into its general search page. The companies do say the deal "will create a new, easier way for users to find better flight information online, which should encourage more users to make their flight purchases online." The deal is "subject to customary closing conditions." More to come shortly.
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 May 11, 2010
Good stuff here on the Hertz-Aviz-Dollar saga.
Source: The New York Times
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 Jul 16, 2009
Posted Jun 19, 2009
More intrigue and nuance about the whole ACTE-NBTA thing:
Brad Seitz resigns as ACTE treasurer
Details published in BTN
And here are a couple official statements as published at Management.travel ...
Posted Jun 16, 2009
The merger of Delta and Northwest is sure confusing if you are flying on a Northwest flight. I just flew from Denver to Memphis. Because I am in the industry I knew this has always been a Northwest flight. (I know very little else about the airline industry, but I do know where hubs are and who flies where.) My ticket said Delta.
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