Originally Posted by
cerealmarketer
It's entirely strategy.
And I think the premise that 'lots of presence in the biggest markets' is better is too superficial and ignores the margin benefit of these smaller markets where you can carve out a near monopoly.
United alone was too thin on this front, and is why it needed a dance partner.
The ideal situation would have been for CO and NW to merge.
But we can thank Gordon for that one...
And US would have been a better partner for UA on this front than CO, though UA's lack of NYC made CO appealing on the 'play in big markets' front the consultants talk about.
Of course, you need NYC/CA to work for a big 3 airline - but to win on margin - you need fortress middle tier hubs with captive corporates.
Well if you want to go further back, DL should have been talking about a merger with UA after exiting bankruptcy in 2007, with Richard Andersen running the show. (If I'm not mistaken, DL was rumoured for a time to be strongly considering a merger with UA but I may be wrong.) DL was pretty much the only airline who could have avoided the mess that has been UA since ESOP.