Originally Posted by HeathrowGuy

United stands to lose hundreds of millions in codeshare revenue since the new US will be able to keep nearly all of its East-West traffic in-house versus sendin pax on UA codeshares. Furthermore, LAS and PHX are the two lowest-yield hubs in America, and the last thing a restructuring United needs is a codeshare partner dumping undercut-priced tickets onto its system (HP was notorious for doing this when partnered with CO).

CO, OTOH, brings a strong Latin America, Northeast, and Pacific presence that would be of genuine financial utility to many if not most Star members. The bottom line is that EWR and IAH can bring far more to the table in terms of premium business traffic revenue synergy than PHL, PHX, or CLT could ever hope for. CO's route network has very little overlap with United's (more overlap exists between CO/NW), and poses little threat to the network of any individual Star member airline. Rather, EWR and IAH would plug holes in the Star North American network.