According to Robert Gottliebsen at Business Spectator, and Etihad Airways CEO James Hogan, there is little or no truth in Rambo's claim:
...they are different companies and if anyboby starts mixing the two then management from both sides will have a field day.
Quite the opposite it seems.
RG: So, those legacy carriers that don’t change their work practices are likely to go out of business?
JH: Well, I think you’ve seen that recently what’s happening in Europe, especially with British Airways. British Airways has been very open in saying they need to reshape their work practices and they need to look at a solution where they can work with other carriers, because I guess one would say the greatest example of a legacy carrier tackling this issue has been KLM and Air France, where they’ve been able to integrate and share those support services and wind down what they don’t need.
And that was before the tie up with Delta & Northwest.
IMHO, the future is Intergration - not Segmentation. 