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 [...]
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Notes: I am leaving out redundant passages, which often occur in congressional hearings. Unless something is in quotation marks, it is a paraphrase of what a speaker is saying. Editorial comments are so noted.
The antitrust task force of the House Judiciary Committee is having a hearing to assess airline competition and the proposed merger between [...]
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Congress may usually cleave along party lines, but it often divides along local lines as well. We are seeing this bipartisan and narrow parochialism in congressmen’s response to the news of the Delta-Northwest merger. Congress is dividing along regional lines of business interest in support of or opposition to the tie-up. The dynamics of the [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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“Higher P, lower Q.”
Hat-tip to Daniel Hall, who writes: “I think Tyler is being cheeky here.”
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Posted in Evan's Fiskings, tagged competition, congress, continental, delta, Merger Mania 2008, mergers, northwest, regulation, united on February 17, 2008 | No Comments »
In a BusinessWeek op-ed, House Transportation Committee chairman James Oberstar (D-Minn.) has come out firmly against airline mergers involving the big six.
Yet this latest round of rumored mergers, which includes a United-Continental scenario, as well as a Delta-Northwest combination, is significant. It would mean further consolidation in the airline industry, further reductions in choice for [...]
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Posted in Daily Departures, tagged humor, mergers on February 14, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Once upon a time, there were two airlines. Each one was happy in its own way. Each had service to most parts of the country; each enjoyed extensive international connections, the former to Asia and the latter to Europe. Each had shiny new planes and hard-working staff members. But each airline sensed a void. They [...]
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As part of Merger Mania 2008, United and Continental are now in talks to merge. United has been eager to merge with someone — anyone — for a few years now, but Continental has been reluctant to do so, preferring to remain profitably independent and well-managed unless industry-wide consolidation forces its hand. There are any [...]
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