I could not find this posted anywhere else so : America West Purchases Shares and Rights of First Refusal Held by Continental http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001227/az_awa_cal.html

PHOENIX, Dec. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- America West Holdings Corporation (NYSE: AWA - news) today announced that
Continental Airlines, Inc. (NYSE: CAL - news and CAL.A - news) has sold to America West all 158,569 shares of Class A
Common Stock of America West held by Continental, and has assigned to America West its rights (including certain first
refusal rights) under a related agreement between Continental and TPG Partners, L.P. and certain TPG affiliates. As
consideration, America West has paid Continental $10.8 million. The payment will be accounted for in 2000 as a reduction in
America West's shareholders equity.

Does anyone else think that HP will be leaving OP in the near future? I'd like to know when the codeshare/frequent flyer agreement expires. I thought that the HP/CO agreement was profitable for both companies so I hope that relationship does not go away.

BSL

I believe another news service's story stated that the agreement run until 2004, and further stated that this transaction won't affect the status of the agreement. If I can find the source, I'll add a link.

Usa Today reported the 2003 time period.

2004 for sure

And yet...

They have already significantly cut back codesharing. And the other night when I got bumped on my CO EWR-LAS flight and rebooked on HP, I heard three times from CO reps "We're not partners anymore."

Of course, this is in fact a foolish CO rep who in fact means that CO no longer provides service for HP at EWR. But it is clear that the partnership between the two has been seriously scaled back and the relations are not good. The alliance may stay until 2003 or 2004, but it will not be clean, and it is clear that CO would not mind getting out ASAP.

CO might be a little ticked off about HP's new alliance with TWA...

The right of first refusal means little to either CO or HP. If Continental was seriously interested in HP it would be stupid (If not a dereliction of duty of the Board of Directors) not to give any interested party an opportunity to make a counter offer before finalizing any deal.

The relationship does seem to be a bit strained. Part of it, IMHO, is that HP's service is not as professional as that of CO & NW. Flying HP is like flying Southwest with an assigned seat.


------------------
Ken in Sacramento

From TravelManKen, "Flying HP is like flying Southwest with an assigned seat."
This is my candidate for quote of the year! And just made it near the deadline!

I wish! The Southwest staff is better trained AND MUCH FRIENDLIER than HP.

Nahhh.....Southwest's planes run a lot closer to on time, and the assigned seat doesn't do you any good if your flight is canceled and you have to squeeze in on the next flight.

The only reason for a OnePass member to fly HP is miles and segments, with the chance of an upgrade thrown in.


[This message has been edited by Old Gold (edited 12-31-2000).]

The original alliance, in addition to reflecting some common ownership (David Bonderman, etc.) was designed to supplement the route structure CO gave up when the Denver hub was closed. At one point, most Western airport stations CO continued to service (like SEA) had HP actually handling all functions for them. As CO has regained its footing, and established it's Western US presence largely as spokes from its dominant hubs in Newark and Houston, the alliance has diminished in strategic importance. There is a relationship with Frontier out of Denver, and of course the NW codeshare is enormous. There are also significant differences in the quality of service between HP and CO, something CO is very mindful of (ditto the NW situation). As of last year, HP drastically reduced the reciprocal benefits CO passengers had been enjoying. Forgetting the TW deal, which has allowed HP to construct a replacement source of feed from the East (where HP is weaker), it is an open secret in the investment community that HP has been looking for a buyer. Evidently, it has determined that CO is no longer in that category. Life goes on.

[This message has been edited by deelmakur (edited 12-31-2000).]

Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I believe that, in most stations where CO took back the front office (ticketing, departure gate functions) from HP, that HP still handles the "ramp" (baggage, aircraft movement and cleaning, etc.).

You could be right. I would guess that in any station where they have fewer than 4 or 5 roundtrip flights a day, those functions would be contracted to somebody else. These are not points of direct customer contact.

I would agree that CO and HP have seemed to drift apart. I fly out west on CO a fair amount and have seen an increasing number of fares at lowest level that don't allow travel on HP (those HP/CO flight numbers will be excluded under the "flight appl." category). Another strike against HP was limiting upgrades by CO elites at any level to leftovers on the day of the flight.

My last flights on HP were about 18 months ago; I had a CO ticket with ONE HP segment (PHX-TUS) and ended up taking back-to-back voluntary bumps on that for $500 in HP certificates. Then another surprise: HP didn't allow mileage-earning on trips on which any PART was paid with a certificate (You still might get credited if you send into the OnePass service center).

They do seem to have operational problems, IMO. OTOH, CO and NW still lack a hub west of Houston and can't even offer many routes from one part of the west to another. Maybe they don't want to compete head-to-head in WN's strongest region, but it'd seem that they couldn't leave gaps like that in the age of monster global alliances with partners that can fly anywhere.