theblakefish

Now, who would make such a thing?

speedster1978

Blake, that is pure genius

Now make a bumper sticker of that, and I'm sure all of us and his more then 40,000 co-workers will be glad to put that on our cars LOL

jlemon

Hey, I know where he parks his Porsche at 1600 Smith Street......but I aint gonna tell anyone!

rkkwan

So I guess the same person who thought Obama = Hope?

CopperSteve

Do you have it in a larger size, so I can use it as my desktop background?

buckeyefanflyer

If Gordon was still around do you think he would even consider selling out. He pulled CO out of chapter 11 some years back and made CO into a great airline. Why does Jeff feel CO can't make it on it's own.

channa

CO has done well in cost control, but they've not done so well in driving revenue. UA is nearly the reverse of that. They've done OK controlling costs, but done much better in driving revenue. Cutting costs only goes so far. At some point you need more money.

When the talent at CO has difficulty understanding the value proposition on concepts like E+ or PS (remember Larry's comment that there's no way a PS plane can make money, all while UA says PS are their most profitable domestic flights), the culture at CO needs to be overhauled to the point where they start thinking differently. They need to stop missing the forest for the trees.

So you take the CO focus on efficiency, and mix it with UA's ability to innovate products and programs to drive revenue, and it's a winner (on paper at least).

transportbiz

CO and especially Smisek suffer from Penny Wise and Pound Foolish syndrome.

channa

I would agree that CO does, but are we sure that Smisek does? Larry did for sure, but I'm not sure we have enough data points on Smisek.

Many of the positive program changes (e.g., SWUs, reversal of fees for Plats, and the Presidential Platinum program) were announced after Larry's departure was announced, and when Smisek's role was announced. So I'm not sure where to attribute those. But given Larry's track record, I have a feeling Jeff was behind them in some way.

J.Edward

I'd agree to that but also don't think we have enough data on Smisek.

I think Kellner envisioned CO as being the "Air Houston", "Air Newark" (pronounced "New York") and "Air Cleveland."

And for this decade I think that largely worked for them. CO operated with fortress hubs, had a sub-optimal elite program when compared to their peers, and focused on operational efficiency -- and got good at it.

Sometime in the past few years that changed with the DL merger being the catalyst that forced the leadership of CO to re-envision how they ran their business. We saw OnePass "grow up" to more aggressively match the AAdvantages/MileagePlus of the industry, we saw CO perform a seismic shift on how they interacted with their partners and I think we'll continue to see change as CO seeks to become more aggressive.

When you look at the UA/CO merger I think there is a lot of potential their for both companies to come off far better positioned then going in alone. From the little I see as a customer both carriers have their own strengths and weaknesses in *all* areas of the business, and if they can really take the best of both, then you'll have a far stronger organization. Honestly, you will.

I think for the time being the merger with UA was inevitable and would not characterize it as a sell out, or at least not yet. I am very curious to see who'll be in the final mix, what polices the combined carrier will keep, and which cultural elements will survive before making up my mind on Smisek selling out CO, or Tilton selling out UA, or if the merger actually gets pulled off to everyone's advantage.

And if we're mutilating the Sr. Leadership's pictures does anyone know if yearbook yourself is still up? We'd have way too much fun with that one.

transportbiz

All true with Smisek, but he has also implemented the end of meals, and increased the points required for rewards with the RewardOne program, further alienating corporate buyers. The latter was announced AFTER it had taken effect. CO is still the only legacy carrier to not offer pillows in Domestic FC. And what does Presidential Platinum really offer? Certainly not enough to push your spend to those levels unless you were going to anyway. And SWUs are part of a new "soft" status level.

channa

Very good points. The R1 situation was particularly bad -- CO is typically pretty good about giving notice on changes. I wonder how that happened.

theblakefish

PhillyPhlyer40

EGO-

Why ruin one company, when Jeff can now destroy a combined 2 companies-one that VALUES customers-and the other that values PROFIT ONLY!

jlemon

Yep, I do, too.....

Got to meet him years ago during a meeting at CO's corp. hq. in Houston.....and he actually replied with personal responses to the few letters I sent to the airline. He is The Man.