Continental and United Airlines to Merge??????

[lunchbox]

The big hype around Houston in the past week is the impending possible merger to create the World's largest airline.  The fact of that doesn't bother me, it's the fact the the name Continental could be lost forever and the HQ move to Chicago.  Not to mention lower competition and higher fares!!  Hopefully Continental will come to their senses and see what a mistake they're making.

Just wanted to get this off my chest, thanks for letting me vent lol

[zorbon]

Hopefully Continental will come to their senses and see what a mistake they're making.

Do you think the stock holders think it's a mistake? It's all about money sir, a merger between the two will benefit anyone who owns a stake in Continental.

[yxramper]

Be glad you're not in Cleveland, lunchbox, they will probably be the first to go. The big shots will all get their golden parachutes, the consultants will all get their big checks and too many good employees will get the boot. Maybe in 5 years the stockholders will see a return from all the carnage. Ain't capitalism swell!

A former Midwest Airlines employee.

[lunchbox]

Yeah got to love it  lol  The downside to capitalism

[ICEcoldair881]

A former Midwest Airlines employee.

my sincerest condolences.

[yxramper]

It was fun to be a small part of "the best care in the air", while it lasted. This is one crazy industry.

[ICEcoldair881]

oh definitely. both my aunts got downsized from airlines. now they're working in sales and Real Estate.

[zorbon]

Be glad you're not in Cleveland, lunchbox, they will probably be the first to go.

offtopic a little bit... this quote reminded me of this...

[Lurkmat]

offtopic a little bit... this quote reminded me of this...

Nice

[swiftus27]

The big hype around Houston in the past week is the impending possible merger to create the World's largest airline.  The fact of that doesn't bother me, it's the fact the the name Continental could be lost forever and the HQ move to Chicago.  Not to mention lower competition and higher fares!!  Hopefully Continental will come to their senses and see what a mistake they're making.

Just wanted to get this off my chest, thanks for letting me vent lol

the boards of both airlines approved the measure last night.  I have no clue what will happen with their hubs. 

UNITED:
Chicago
Washington Dulles
Denver
San Francisco
Los Angeles

CONTINENTAL:
Cleveland
Newark
Houston

Now what???   

[Brockster]

I've always loved United's tulip icon and I really do admire their current livery so I'm sad to see it go. The continental livery looks fine with the continental logo but the hybrid of the two looks really ugly in my opinion. I'm very curious to see what AA's response will be. Funny how they were the biggest three years ago and now they're falling behind in third.

But yes, it will be very interesting to see which hubs will stay. I think Cleveland is a goner because of Chicago but I really have no idea about the other hubs. However, they truly will have the best coverage out of any North American airline even though they lack presence in Florida.

[juanchopancho]

Continental share holders file suit against the merger. Shareholders are thrilled.

[spiff23]

agree with brockster.  Terrible looking planes.  The CO tail makes sense, but they should keep the UA shades of blue on the plane itself.

I'd really be surprised if they downsize much.  United actually had a hub in Cleveland up till the early 1990s and ran multiple fully loaded DC-10s there up until they retired them. In fact a lot of senior UA pilots and FAs still live in Cleveland and commute to ORD. I assume they might actually return some mainline service there since it seems like an rj hub for CO know and they can return mainline service to cities like DC.

There really aren't too many downsides other than fleet incompatibility...although UA has lots of experience with 737s.  Maybe they'll even bring a few of theirs back from the desert (like the -500s) and redeploy them at ORD where they've gone RJ.  They're going to need to do something like that to figureout what to do with the 1,200 furloughed UA pilots and CO's contract that limits RJs to 50 seats or something like that.  There might even be demand to bring back some of the parked 747s and deply them in EWR for routes like EWR-NRT and then use the 777s for something new like the Africa routes UA has authority to serve.  Given there is so little overlap, I would assume labor gets on board pretty quick if the new management throws a few bones and really explains the upside for jobs creation if everyone gets on board.  Neither airline is going to grow in their current state and will more likely continue to shrink and outsource more flying to RJs.

I could see some route realignment like the CO fiji service going to LA or SFO...shifts that would likely increase the potential draw. 

Given Smisek's in charge, I would hope they carve up their regional operations to play to what they do best.  UA completely mis-handled the Pan Am LatAm operations and MIA hub.  So I would think Houston office will become the LatAM office and takeover the UA LatAm routes and authorities.  That's one thing folks don't realize is UA is sitting on a lot of unused bilateral rights.  For example, they can probably transfer reactivate their routes to Santiago, Montevideo and Lima  under CO management even though UA hasn't flown to those places since 2001 or so.  That's really why the UA name survived as outside the continental Europe routes that Delta picked up UA is basically the orginal UA domestic + Pan Am...as they have the Pan Am Pacific, LHR hub and slots (including the ones they lease); LatAm authorities (most unused) and I think they picked some Africa authorities that were part of Pan Am LatAm.  Basically they can re-open all sorts of routes playing to each carries network strengths...if they don't mess up the integration.

The only downside is if they do away with economy plus; then there would be a lot of UA elite fliers who would abandon ship and they would be further disadvantaged on international routes. 

[swiftus27]

What do you do with KDEN and KCLE, though?

[RushmoreAir]

What do you do with KDEN and KCLE, though?

They better keep large services at KDEN.  Then I'm stuck with a seasonal UA flight to ORD, AA, F9 (Frontier), and DL.  Oh, and Allegiant too, but they are awful.

[ucfknightryan]

What do you do with KDEN and KCLE, though?

Why would they do anything with KDEN? Continental doesn't add any hubs in the west, and KDEN was apparently worthwhile for United.

[Maarten Otto]

There's a Dutch proverb that says:

When there is profit to be made.... To hell with the people.

[spiff23]

On DEN...that was the original Continental's main hub before all their 1990 bankruptcies and UA and CO competed aggresively...ORD-DEN used to have CO DC-10s going head to head with the UA DC-10s.  I would assume CO may still have some lingering goodwill in DEN and like UA in Cleveland, probably still has a lot of pilots and FAs that commute from there. 

It would be good to see them do two 80s legacy planes one in the CO golden tail with the meatball and one in the UA orange, red and blue scheme 

[swiftus27]

On DEN...that was the original Continental's main hub before all their 1990 bankruptcies and UA and CO competed aggresively...ORD-DEN used to have CO DC-10s going head to head with the UA DC-10s.  I would assume CO may still have some lingering goodwill in DEN and like UA in Cleveland, probably still has a lot of pilots and FAs that commute from there.  

It would be good to see them do two 80s legacy planes one in the CO golden tail with the meatball and one in the UA orange, red and blue scheme  

Just like sports teams in the US...  they love to paint planes in their old liveries just to bring back some nostalgia.

I am particularly concerned about KCLE.  It is a CRJ/Dash8 hub for Cont mainly and is in a wonderful location (within ~1.5 hours of 1/3rd of the US population.)    If they cut back, it would spell doom for the airport as there are only a handful of SW and AA flights going out of CLE.   Do we know if ORD's slots are full?   CLE has open movements right now and could grow as a 737/Dash8/CRJ hub for those people connecting on.

[Kazari]

From what I understand, people in KCLE are justifiably worried. If you look at the map, it's the obvious one to go.

Washington? No.
Newark? No.
Chicago? No.