Colombia's Avianca, El Salvador's TACA to merge

[EagleA25]

TACA-Avianca Combo....

Hello Everyone…
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything here, so a special shout out to Panama Jack, good to see you’re still active here.
Indeed, the merger of Grupo TACA and Avianca is very exciting for the South and Central American Region, not just from a client’s perspective, but this will definitely open up employment opportunities in the region, so there will be a demand for dispatchers, mechanics, flight attendants and Command Personnel as the Holding already announced its plans of aggressive expansions in that region. Airlines like GOL and LAN will now need to take a close look at their strategic positions in and evaluate their moves very carefully. As both airlines, especially LAN, were in positions of monopolistic powers they were able to afford to make mistakes that cost them more than breadcrumbs, but big chunks. I personally believe it will come down to the one which will pay attention to details the most.
Many might disagree on his strategies and forms of management, but as the owner of Avianca and Ocean Air (BRA), Mr. German Efromovich, who in my personal opinion is a genius on how he saved Avianca from certain Death, already announced to return into the Peruvian market, this might end up in an all-out war between LAN and this new Holding. (Yes, not just “almost” dead Avianca, I thought 8 years ago Avianca was in the ER on a respirator and with no cerebral activity, veggie state, dead, artificially kept alive, about to get the plug pulled…). If he is to return into Peru I hope he learned his lesson on how to divide the controling assets of his Peruvian associates so that he will remain in control as with his previous experience he was forced to lay off more than 1200 people after a very short presence in the market. A really sad story how the Peruvian partial owner of Wyra Peru only had the intention of stealing as this airline seemed extremely promising. With many South American Employers, one of the many difficulties in low cost operations is the adequate and punctual compensation. Wyra Peru paid its pilots not only during the training their full pay check, it paid always on time, two things a S. American air carrier rarely does.
Now, I have my serious doubts that COPA would form some kind of alliance with LAN, even though it would look like COPA needs a strong and dependable partner in the region to remain afloat, but their historical association to Continental Airlines will inhibit it, even though COPA denies having any kind of loose ends with Continental anymore they still have Code-Share agreements as far as I know of. I personally believe COPA will continue to remain a small but noticeable regional carrier and rely on its strategic location to connect the South and the North of the Americas with very affordable fares.
In all of this, I do feel very sorry and angry for our colleagues on the Northern part of the Americas. I just read this article of the NY Times and pretty much describes what is going on up there:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/business/economy/14income.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=pilot%20officer&st=cse
I do have to admit though that the U.S. Airline System and lack of supervising structure byt the Authoreties enable Airlines like Piedmont and Gulfstream Airways to gain market shares as they pay their pilots US$ 17.000 a year without their Type-rating and wonder afterwards why a Q400 ends up on top of a home instead the runway in Buffalo NY as the crews are extremely inexperienced and insufficiently trained and supervised.
Well, I will try to participate a bit more in the future in these forums and I apologize for my absence hoping I was missed dearly…
My sincere regards
Eagle