American Airlines Flirting With US Airways On Possible Merger
An unnamed source has told Reuters that American Airlines is in talks with US Airways about a possible merger—and that it's also in talks with Continental about sharing passengers! Meanwhile, Continental is currently in talks with United about a possible merger of its own, and has said it will only choose one partner eventually. United, on the other hand, is not only pursuing Continental but is also in talks with US Airways about a merger. Yes, we have an airlines romantic triangle, folks. Someone's heart is going to end up broken.
So where will all this drama end? We figure by the end of the season, US Airways will be merging with someone in a cute wedding chapel, but then a bunch of men will run in firing machine guns and we won't know who lived and who died until the fall!
Combining United with Continental would create a company with a combined $35 billion in revenue and nearly 100,000 employees, surpassing the Delta-Northwest combination as the world's largest airline.
But that merger may not happen. United Airlines, whose shares plunged 40 percent when it reported a quarterly loss earlier this week, is also talking to US Airways.
Analysts have said a merger between those two carriers would be less complex than one between United and Continental Airlines.
JP Morgan analyst Jamie Baker earlier this week said a deal between United and US Airways could be easier when it comes to aligning the wages of pilots, combining fleets and reducing flights and seats.
"American Airlines in talks with Continental, US Air" [Reuters]
(Photo: LAX)
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Comments:
awesome, instead of lots of bad airlines, we can have one big huge conglomerate of crap!
heather locklear and martin lawrence??
Oh, wow, I quite enjoyed the NBC series L.A.X.! Too bad it was canceled after 13 episodes -- Heather Locklear and Blair Underwood were great in that.
Uh oh. Better spend my AA miles now!
@MissTic
And after the Great Merger, the combined entity will declare bankruptcy and the U.S. government will bail it out (with our taxpayer money).
Thats odd considering I just heard another rumor that UA and US were talking about a merger. Though why anyone would want to merge with UA, ugh, thats asking for a headache. They're in horrible financial shape.
AA and US doesn't make a lot of sense though.
I'm not sure what the merger means to the consumers, but I guess Heather Locklear makes it look good.
+1 "LAX" reference in the article photo.
+1 "Dynasty" reference in the summary.
+2 for remembering that Heather Locklear was in that season of Dynasty.
How about all 3 airlines merge into the good ones that know how to provide decent customer service, like Southwest, JetBlue and Virgin America.
@t325:
Nah, I would rather have VA, SWA, and jetBlue merge into one, but they eliminate Southwest's cattle call boarding. Or, just have jetBlue and Virgin go at it. They might create a pretty strong product with good customer service if they keep it up after their merger.
If I had to choose, I'd rather have CO & UA go at it (not that I'm advocating the merger). From a business standpoint, they would have a bigger route network, and hubs at really major cities (such as SF, LA, Chicago, NY, DC to name a few). US Air, to me, just doesn't seem to fit well with UA.
What are some scenarios for FF miles? I'm sitting on over 100K miles with US Airways.
In the future, going to the airport will be so much less confusing, seeing as there will only be one terminal!
Once all of the mergers occurs and all of the 2nd tiers are sucked into the merged companies, we'll basically have just a handful of primary carriers and the airline field will start to look similar to how it was 30-40 years ago.
Wow, American Airlines merging with US Airways? Isn't that the terrible airline dream team?
I remember when they deregulated the airlines, saying that we would get more diversity and competition, resulting in lower fairs. This seemed to work for a while, but good old market forces were at work and now we have fewer and fewer airlines cutting costs on everything in sight, no matter the risk to the public, and now charging more for the honor of risking our lives, bags, and mental health. I think that it is a pretty good bet that things will get worse before any improvement happens.
Pretty soon the only airline to fly on will be called Unitedamericancontientialnorthwest Airlines