|
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 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 Mar 23, 2010
If Jeff Smisek, Continental Airline’s CEO, was a gambler, he probably wouldn’t play roulette. Why not? The odds are stacked too far in favor of the house.
Mr. Smisek’s risk tolerances came to light at an investors’ conference earlier this month. He made it clear how Continental would handle the risk of being fined up to $27,500 per passenger for excessive tarmac delays.
Posted Mar 16, 2010
Continental Airlines will charge for meals this fall. It’s about time. And money, and choice. Lots of travel managers and many more travelers will hate seeing this movie.
Posted Dec 16, 2009
Southwest Airlines ranked first on Glassdoor.com's list for 2010 of the 50 best places to work, "selected by the people who know these companies best--their employees," according to Glassdoor. Fellow travel industry companies Continental Airlines placed eighth and Marriott snuck in at 50th.
Posted Oct 22, 2009
A little while back, some of the major online travel agencies waived fees for flight bookings. Has it had an effect on airline direct Web site bookings? Yes, say some airline executives. What are the airlines doing about it? They can't say.
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?
Posted Sept 25, 2009
The Beat's readers named Southwest Airlines the 2009 Supplier Of The Year, ProMedia.travel announced Wednesday during The Beat Live.
Polled this summer, readers of The Beat were asked which company in each of six supplier segments they "most admire for its policies, management style and service for business clients." Those who voted for their own company were disqualified.
Other winners included:
• American Express for most admired payment system
• Hertz for most admired car rental company
• Marriott International for most admired hotel company
• Concur as most admired technology provider
• Continental Airlines as most admired airline
• BCD Travel as the most admired travel management company
(from left) ProMedia.travel CEO Tim Reid, Southwest Airlines corporate sales and distribution director Rob Brown and The Beat founder Jay Campbell
(from left) The Beat founder Jay Campbell, Concur director of travel and industry relations Suzanne Fletcher and ProMedia.travel CEO Tim Reid
Posted Aug 14, 2009
We haven't yet discussed the current New York slot swaps yet because we wanted to take a little time and digest. For those of you not paying attention, this airline game of Wife Swap (a TV show, really) has got Continental and AirTran trading a few slots at Washington National/ LGA for Newark and a huge transfer between Delta and USAirways at New York LGA and Washington National.
|
