Originally Posted by
bocastephen
They made the claim before the merger was announced. I think the powers that be will find it much easier to develop a consistent program across the merged carriers than try and jury-rig a temporary solution while the companies are deep in thought trying to figure out how to integrate the more important facets of their business.
Frankly, reciprocity is not that important right now - they have bigger fish to fry.
I disagree. Reciprocity is now more important as it demonstrates that the two airlines will become one. You're not exactly going to get consumer buy-in to the merger if the two sides treat them radically different. This is one way where they can align themselves pretty quickly, and they probably have a lot of the legwork done already since they've been aware of it and have been working on it for some time.
Further, the merger is expected to close late this year. It'll probably be at least another year after that before they're all on one system (and/or on one code). They're not going to want to wait 1.5 to 2 years before they do this.