American and United Merger

[alberchico]

If American and United were to merge would it cut their costs as an avition consulting firm recently claimed?The way things are going ,at least one of the majors in the U.S. are going to go bankrupt anyway.Some say it will be U.S. Airways but who knows?:( :confused: :yuk: :{ :ugh: :bored:

[Torquelink]

Can't think of many (any?) examples where merging two loss making enterprises has resulted in one profitable enterprise!

Sorry!

:hmm:

[Ignition Override]

Alberchico, just a question. Who dreamed up the idea that those two giants would or could even consider a merger? Does a person with such an idea even know that American bought TWA just before 9/11 happened, and that it resulted in American, from what many analysts have concluded, being forced to swim even harder to 'stay afloat'? Most of the TWA pilots (all with many years of transport jet experience) have no more jobs, are on the street.

What sort of academia is this person involved with? What a state of oblivion....Seeing most of the realities in the US airline scene for the very first time must be quite a shock and very baffling. Sort of like leaving the UC Berkeley or UW Madison campuses (never mind many folks in certain towns in southern Vermont) and joining a business.:confused:

[alberchico]

I am not the one who proposed it!It was a leading aviation consulting firm that just floated the idea of a merger .A lot of ideas are proposed in aviation, but not all come into frutition.I agree the AA-TWA merger was incredibly shortsighted with 9-11 just around the corner.They could have operated TWA as a low cost subsidary to beat Jetblue and all the other LCC!!!!!!!

[Ignition Override]

No sweat Alberchico. Don't worry about it. Many Ppruners punch out baffled replies when we read such baloney. It's just the nature of the beast, and usually other readers suspect anger is there when it is usually just frustration and surprise.

I had been reading plenty of bad news the last two days about United, Delta and especially USAirways in "the Wall Street Journal", and on the Yahoo airline news: all quite depressing. The more your competition's employees get beaten down, the harder it is for your company to resist walking over to you with a large stick....Never mind using the dreaded retirement funding issue as a very serious weapon in the much-denied (by mgmt) pattern bargaining.

Please offer more info, no matter how it looks. Sooner or later lots of truth leaks out of Pprune, somewhere.

[Young Paul]

Well, in terms of two loss-making airlines combining, there was always Swissair and Sabena.

:eek:

[colegate]

I cannot imagine anything less likely to succeed than such a merger. Both airlines are overstaffed, very costly and inefficient by the standards of our times. For each to tackle those problems separately has proved almost impossible with American probably having the better record.

Then you have the problem of fundamentally different aircraft fleets. Very few synergies would be possible there.

Then you have the problem of the competing hubs at Chicago. No regulator would ever allow them to be merged. It would be just the same on their international routes.

The management effort required would be way beyond anything that has ever been contemplated in any business in the whole history of time. Trying to merge two of the largest companieds in the world when both are in a hopeless state is such an unimaginably daunting task the surely no sane person would ever attempt it.

No sadly what has got to happen id for United to cut back its operations to some profitable core. American will have to do the same. It would be nice to think that if US Air failed completely that it would then be easier for AA and UA. I think not, though. US is such a ragbag of an operation that it is hard to see who will benefit exceept Southwest and Jet Blue, and Air Tran. American would probably see some gsains at Raleigh if US closed Charlotte.

Those big American airlineds look as if they need to shed at least 25% of their capacity and about 30% of their unit costs if they are going to survive. It is going to be a tough winter.