Originally Posted by
joejones
You just changed your opinion entirely in the time it took to type a period and a space. Is it the free market or isn't it?
I wouldn't say he changed his opinion as much as he just kind of misstated something.
If United and Continental brings free food to Transcons and more competent management, I'll be happy. As for the frequent flyer program, I'd say that seeing as many people see Mileage Plus as one of the strengths of United and OnePass as one of the weaknesses of Continental, they'd want to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.
Thats just how I'd see it though. I mean, they may want to do whatever they can to make their operations as cheap as possible, but you know, they don't gain anything by shafting the people who buy the high margin tickets, because we've already established that that is where they make the most of their money. I mean, with the 3 class transcons and etc, I doubt that we'll see those go away because they make good money off of those. From a business standpoint, they make money off of those AND keep the morale of their frequent flyers up.
If they merge, they're merging in order to do better. Not do worse.
Also, with IAD, I sincerely doubt that you'd see any diversion of flow away from there because in addition to having the federal government there big time, you have people who work on government contracts coming in and out of the area, but Northern Virginia is also home to Tyson's Corner, the 12th biggest business district in the US (with companies like Freddie Mac, Gannet, SAIC, Capital One etc etc) and also has the Dulles technology corridor. Yes, it does lose traffic to DCA & BWI, but DCA has very limited flights and BWI is a total pain to get to.
This could all be totally irrelevant though, because its not certain at all as to whether they'll merge or not.