ma91pmh

this is truly hilarious.. i gave up no aa about 2 years ago and have not looked back... the grass has truly been greener for me on the dl side... in that time aa have stagnated, actually more like contracted ... and now they have put themselves in bankruptcy .... too little too late... would not be surprised to see the end result is they get taken over by us or dl... and if that does happen, don't fool yourselves aa apologists... it won't be aa wearing the trousers

GUWonder

A business unfriendly Administration would allow a DL-AA merger to proceed posthaste with few constraints (if any). Under the current Administration, Corporate America would receive a favor by not allowing further concentration of interest that hikes up the national cost of doing business with other businesses -- as a DL-AA combination would do. "Business friendly" and "business unfriendly" is apparently in the eyes of the beholders.

abk

WSJ now says USair is formally in the game.

pinniped

That one makes more sense to me...and it's one that would seem more likely to pass the DOJ smell test, conditional upon them together staying in Oneworld.

Not that I'm rooting for it though: I just hit US Gold and hope they stick around in *A for at least one more year so I can get my summer 2013 plans booked.

berlinflyer83

Now, this makes me wonder if I should bother continuing to work on building up my AA miles account. I was going to use them for an F OW 25K award next year.

Maybe time to dust off the M&M card.

Fanjet

By business un-friendly, I mean one that would allow a business to make more money by strengthening its position, especially if it meant the loss of jobs (which such a merger would). Either way, this move by DL is more postering IMO to make it harder for US to aquire AA (which they would fear outright since it would give them serious competition in the SE). Like I said before, there's no way the DOJ would sign-off on a combined carrier controlling more than a quarter of air traffic in the U.S.

pinniped

It wouldn't alter my AA mileage plans one way or another. Not yet anyway.

If I was sitting on 3 million miles, I might be more concerned. If you're talking about pursuing a single award, you'll probably reach it and redeem it long before any proposed merger completes.

Dust off M&M if that truly makes more sense for you long term, but don't hesitate to grab the few AA miles you need for your 25k award.

aztimm

new story on WSJ.com--
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LEFTTopStories

SuperBuck27

I used to practice BK law at one of the largest law firms on planet earth. Similar to what I shared re: the original AA BK, here are my thoughts:

1. No way does DL get AA. The anti-trust division of the DOJ will not allow this to happen. Please see what just happened with AT&T and T-Mobile for an example. The President just appointed (a semi-recess appt. :-)) a new consumer watchdog. This guys could spend 110% of his time just monitoring "new DL/AA pricing on routes like DFW-SLC and DFW-ATL". No way, Jose.

2. I know a lot about TPG but cannot tell you why. Their deal to turn Continental around is one of the EPIC private equity success stories -- certainly in air transportation. These guys are very smart and know what they are doing. Pray they get the asset over anyone else.

3. But, you should also pray that they don't think about folding AA into US Airways -- TPG's slightly less successful deal. That deal has been a hard one for them. The assets were aging, the labor deals were not that great and their routes were not as lucrative (much of Co-Airs value was in the excellent Air Micronesia routes to the South Pacific).

My handicap system:

1. AA comes out of BK as a standalone company: 70%
2. AA comes out of BK and is acquired by TPG: 20%
3. AA comes out of BK and is acquired by TPG/US Airways: 10%
4. AA comes out of BK and is acquired by DL: 0%

SB

Petrus

Haha ^

econometrics

I'll take those odds.

I was wondering when the stories and rumors would start surfacing on this topic. Time to buckle in and live through all of them. This is only the beginning.

eponymous_coward

Lack of aircraft? They could pick up the phone to Boeing and fix that. In fact, they have.

Global_Hi_Flyer

If it's DL, game over for me. DL used to be my primary and is now my secondary. Given what they've done with fares, upgrades, and other perks, maintaining PLT status with them costs significantly more than EXP with AA. A combination would allow even higher fares and costs, virtually unchecked, along with customer unfriendly policies.

If I'm going to have to pay a lot more for lesser service, my flying will go down in a much greater proportion than the increased cost.

IIRC, they also had part of YX, which was far less successful for them. Most of the private equity guys are very smart and retain very smart business folks. It will undoubtedly result in increased cost to the customer and less service to the customer.

The VZ/ATT virtual duopoly is a great example of what might happen if AA and DL were allowed to combine.

One other thing: DL has been known to run stalking horse bids for things to drive up the cost for other companies. We've seen it in the Japan competition.... and their use of market muscle & predatory tactics at CVG is legendary. Early on, DL let it be known that they saw an opportunity in the bankruptcy to further hurt AA. Best way to do that is to bid very hard against someone else in the BK exit, causing 1) the other guy to pull away, or 2) strike a deal that gets turned down by DOJ, thereby hurting AA.

sonofzeus

If anyone knows where I can get 30:1 that AA does NOT emerge as a standalone, pls send a PM.

ccengct

Of course. They sell a fungible service with virtually identical inputs (spectrum, base stations, handsets, and labor) among the players. Airlines aren't much different, except that they choose where they fly. In a sense, so do the wireless carriers -- in terms of their coverage outside metro areas and highway corridors.