Interesting...not sure whether to be happy or sad...

Interestingly the stories so far seem to be about seeking anti-trust immunity for an alliance with AA & BA, but not about joining OneWorld.

Given today's announcement, I am going to remove the sticky from this thread. Please continue discussions in the "no merger" announcement.

I wonder if CO will negotiate to preserve the current upgrade arrangement with NW or whether that's gone, gone, gone with the new discussion about forming an alliance with AA.

What if mutual upgrades were somehow arranged with AA?

Congratulations to CO for making the brave and correct move!

I am pleased to see the brand stick around, for the time being anyway. And I am pleased that the management would apparently rather run a quality medium/large airline than a mediocre very large one.

+1 to that. As much as I had delusions of more than CO RDM's to go TPAC, it's the right move.

99% happy about this...
 

As a CO employee, I was not too thrilled about joining forces with UA. I think Kellner has made the right decision although I do wonder how much of it was based on how crappy UA is and how awesome we think we are....

We are a great airline. But jet fuel is $145 a barrel. What is that old saying? "Pride comes before the fall..."

I think it was probably allbased on how crappy UA is. Yes, bigger is sometimes better but not always -- not, apparently, at the cost of absorbing UA's toxic employee relations, shabby inflight product, miserable financials... a merged CO/UA would not have been insured against failure, either. You got fewer X factors and more control by staying independent.

Actually, the in-flight product is about the only thing UA has going for it. At least for status flyers.

Only for status flyers, and then only high-status flyers, and even then it's remarkably inconsistent. Check out all the aggreived 1Ks on the UAL forum who feel like their status counts for nothing. And UA's treatment of non-status/general customers is nothing short of appalling.

I should revise what I said to refer only to the hard product. UA's seats are great, even for the lowest level elites. E+ means I don't need to worry about upgrades on most flights. And UA's FA's are actually pretty good (though they are admittedly very inconsistent).