CO 1E

One of the benefits of MP has been the lower-priced C rewards, but I would bet that redemption rates will go up after the OP and MP programs are merged.

tuolumne

Uh oh. Here we go again with the goons from both sides who are injecting emotional, pointless, delusional thoughts into the name debate. I absolutely love how this one above talks like his opinion is a fact. Wow, and he's even special enough that "everyone" he knows in Asia talks for everyone who flys the airline. ^

How about we leave the real decisions to people a little less emotionally driven and, gasp, bias

Hartmann

http://www.co-industryconsolidation.com

I am not really sure if that's an "official" Continental website or not. The registrant information is NetworkSolutions. Unless they were just trying to get it up in a hurry (doesn't make much sense because it was bought in Feb).

J.Edward

Good advice®

...and let me be the first to suggest you should follow it.

cova

If CO joins *A then I think the name of UA/CO would have to be United.

It does surprise me in the CO press release that CO even brought up the subject of considering joining another alliance.

The issue was the release of the "Golden Share" and CO's need to look at options - but my view - no need to suggest looking at another alliance in that announcement. It may happen, but why say it, unless DL/NW/AF/KL want CO out of Skyteam.

cooltraveler

Hi all,

Look at this graphic that lays out all the possible combinations for Delta, Northwest, United and Continental.

It's the last link on the right-side panel under "Related Video and Graphics".

What do you think?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...d=aJCwdpgKjvyg

spin88

perhaps i'm insolated, but as someone who was UA til the 2000 melt down, was with TWA, left when it became AA, was with CO as a Plat for 5 years and left to go back to UA to years ago (only a silver on CO this year, but 3 years of 1K) i find my Irr-OPs on UA to be much much better than it was as a Plat.

e.g. today, my flight to ORD is delayed, they e-mailed me that I would not make my connection, rebooked via Denver (and kept in my upgrades). I also routinely show up early or late to flights and they get me on. In three years of 150K per year on UA i've never been stuck, and I have with rare exception always gotten on an earlier plane. While with CO I got stuck a number of times.

The upgrades were good on CO in the early 2000s, got bad (particularly out of EWR) and I went back to UA.

So while CO with its newer fleet have fewer mechanicals, when a problem does occur, I would much much rather be on UA.

As to name, I too go to asia, and europe, and UA is known worldwide, CO is not. While the management is going to be CO if their is a merger, the name will be UA.

Hopefully, UAs unions will respond to a better management, and I expect they will, but at the end of the day, I expect that the new carrier will end up being parts of both, but with more UA than CO to it. Don't forget that UA has a fair premium, and competes directly with AA, so if CO goes too far away from the UA business model (e+, SWUs, and bigger C cabins on international) it is going to loose many of the 1K and high end fliers it has.

bocastephen

Goon? Gee, I can't remember the last time I walked around with black leather boots, swung a stick or joined the TSA. Goon is a little harsh, speaking of emotional and delusional thoughts

I'm tied in enough to the business and know a sufficient number of people to conduct a small market test, and my market test results were definitely anti-UA. I've heard it time and time again. No matter where they fly from, they won't fly UA unless the fare is either way below SQ/CX, they're on an award ticket or their company booked them in UA J class. Am I, or my associates speaking for everyone who flies UA? I think not, nor did I ever claim so. Has their CO experience been perfect? No - unless they fly J, I've heard plenty of complaints about being sandwiched into a 31" space for 12-14 hours.

Opinion as fact? Let me suggest the following fact - outside of Randy, COInsider, Starwood Lurker and RealDLInsider, every single post in this whole bulletin board website is opinion or belief, passionate or not, but certainly not factual.

I am passionately stating something which I firmly believe is both true, and the most appropriate outcome. It is not fact, until it appears in a CO press release.

Mr.Nuke

I don't see any reason to assume it isn't a CO website.

bocastephen

I think the key here is being 1K on UA, or even GS. UA takes good care of its best customers - no question. It's how they treat everyone else which appears to need some work.

Of course it's all about perspective. As a CO Plat, I'm more concerned with how CO treats me during an irregular op than I am another customer - I just want to be accommodated and sent on my way. If that happens, I'm happy.

pbarnette

Methinks it may be mutual. CO's entire strategy is building up a stand-alone TATL operation. If they had any interest in funneling traffic through somebody else's hub, they wouldn't fly routes like EWR-HAM. And I think they have decided that their strategy is a fair trade-off for any possible connecting traffic they might get from AF/KL.

Look at the difference between their strategy and NW. NW runs virtually every TATL flight through AMS, but serves a decent number of destinations in the US (EWR, BDL, BOS, MEM, DTW, MSP, SEA, PDX - am I missing anyone?). CO has TATL flights out of 3 airports, and CLE is seasonal.

If you were AF/KL, which model would you prefer? And I wonder if LH will be any more excited about CO's strategy, than AF/KL appear to be. And I wonder if CO really cares. While I don't think it likely, if anyone would try to go alliance-free, it would be CO.

sfogate

Isn't the reason upgrades are easier on UA is because they fly bigger planes with more capacity?

I don't think the Unions are worth the dues their members pay. They didn't do much good for TWA or NW or UA. In fact I think they responded quite well with "allowing" the pay cuts. At the end of the day, the Union will allow anything to happen as long as they get to keep collecting their dues.

GRB051111

Especially that it is linked to directly from continental.com's front page

Lurker1999

It's linked from the main page of co.com. I think that makes it rather "official" wouldn't you say so?

channa

It almost sounds as if you're not familiar with the UA system. Sure employees get the best seats available on the plane, but that's on both airlines. On UA, the seats are filled by upgraders up until the door closes. On CO, it's set 24 hours out. So if revenue management screws up, or more likely, people misconnect to the int'l flight, and their upgrade hadn't cleared yet, too bad. The saved seats go to employees. On UA, people misconnect, and the next in line on the upgrade list gets them. Not sure about you, but giving them to a customer seems more customer friendly.

As for paying for upgrades, keep in mind that certificates are earned as you fly. 4 x 500 for each 10K flown, plus 2 x CR1 for each 10K flown per quarter, plus 6 x SWU annually.

So, a 1K flying just:

JFK-SYD 3 x RT (using SWU) = 60K EQM flown
JFK-HNL 4 x RT (using CR1) = 40K EQM flown

Could upgrade each and every flight of the year, without even using a single one of the 40 (!) 500-miler certificates he earned. Many 1Ks have upgrade certs to spare, many of which go unused.

Further, the fact that one has to request and essentially manage their upgrades, lets people who are tight on upgrades pick and choose the flights they want to upgrade. SFO-LAX, nah. LAX-ORD redeye, nah. That makes upgrading for lower tiers easier, because the competition is not there. If every top tier is given a free upgrade, then there is nobody who doesn't request it, nor anybody who doesn't know how to use the system to pass by.

Really?

- UA has free booze to Asia, CO does not
- UA has better seat pitch in E-, CO does not
- UA has better padding on their Recaro branded coach seats (CO has the hard seats we all know and love)
- On the 777 you get comparable IFE; on the 747, CO has better IFE (this will change once UA's cabin retrofit is complete)

Both have free meals and headsets internationally.