Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged business, Merger Mania 2008 on May 1, 2008 | No Comments »
The main — and really only — important reason for publicly held airlines to merge is to increase the value for investors. The idea in the industry is that a theoretically well-designed merger will increase this value, which is why big airlines are pursuing tie-ups so ardently. Along comes Moody’s to throw a well-deserved wrench [...]
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged airports, business, competition, Merger Mania 2008, mergers, network airlines, regulation, united, us airways on April 28, 2008 | No Comments »
Now that Continental has turned down suitor United, the latter is weighing a desperation move: merging with US Airways to create the world’s new largest airline (surpassing Delta-Northwest, assuming that goes through). The airlines may announce a tie-up within the next fortnight. Therefore, it’s time for another Merger Mania 2008 antitrust evaluation.
As you’ll remember from [...]
Posted in Evan's Commentary, tagged business, competition, delta, Merger Mania 2008, mergers, northwest on April 15, 2008 | 3 Comments »
The press conference is streaming live at www.newglobalairline.com. It got started about 10 minutes late.
Richard Anderson (Delta CEO): this is a financially powerful merger. Also: it’s especially necessary due to record-high fuel prices. He claims Delta-NWA will be “better able to handle the volatility of fuel” than as standalone carriers. Transaction creates over “6,000 new [...]
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged business, competition, delta, Merger Mania 2008, mergers, northwest on April 14, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Merger Mania 2008 is back and kicking. Delta and Northwest have announced their merger plan. See this Bloomberg story for more. I’ll have more on this later, but for now, you can look back at my overview of the DL-NW antitrust issues. After the failure of the two airlines’ pilot groups to agree on a [...]
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged alitalia, business, europe, regulation on April 14, 2008 | No Comments »
With Silvio Berlusconi’s expected victory in this week’s elections, Air France-KLM is “poised to walk away from a deal” to acquire failing and flailing state airline Alitalia, reports the Telegraph. Berlusconi has expressed his hostility to the proposed deal, already on the rocks due to union opposition, calling it “unacceptable and, indeed, offensive for our [...]
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged budget airlines, business, prestige on April 9, 2008 | No Comments »
Skybus founder John Weikle’s plans to start an ultra-low-cost-no-frills airline based in Charleston, W.Va. — see here and here — are being dropped due to insufficient financing, persistently high fuel prices (the Energy Information Administration projects that $100+/barrel is here to stay in 2008), and the slowing economy. All investors are getting their money back.
Good [...]
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged alitalia, business, competition, europe, regulation on April 9, 2008 | No Comments »
My article about the Alitalia privatization debacle — and how it’s being complicated by next week’s elections in Italy — is now up at Forbes.com.
Posted in Evan's Debates, tagged budget airlines, business, history, regulation, travel on March 23, 2008 | No Comments »
Last week, Sean O’Neill addressed the tricky nature of measuring changes in airfares. Air fare indexes pick up or decreases in base fares over time, but they don’t pick up “nickel and diming” (the addition of lots of charges for luggage, food, over-the-phone booking) or declines in service (cranky flight attendants, less legroom).
I’m on record [...]
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged business, regulation, travel, virgin america on March 19, 2008 | No Comments »
I subscribe to the Daily Airline Filings feed (can’t link to the post; the site is password protected but the feed is not), and an interesting item came through today. Virgin America has filed for confidentiality for its Form 41 filings of operations, traffic, and financial data with the Department of Transportation. Why?
Public release . [...]
Posted in Evan's News and Quick Takes, tagged business, delta, labor, Merger Mania 2008, mergers, northwest on March 17, 2008 | No Comments »
BREAKING NEWS: Delta and Northwest’s pilot groups were unable to come to agreement about a merged seniority list. Delta MEC chairman Lee Moak announced the breakdown of negotiations today in a letter to Delta pilots. Without a merged seniority list, a merger might still go through (companies can force master seniority list mergers, as I’ve [...]
