Tod E Tosser

Today BA honcho Willie Walsh is openly courting CO to bolt Skyteam for OneWorld and a BA/AA/CO alliance:

http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage...d=yahoofinance

"It's a great airline, has a great reputation, a strong brand and a good management team," Mr Walsh said of Continental, which ruled out merging with United or another peer last month but said it would consider leaving SkyTeam.

"Continental would be a great addition. But that's just one of several options I have no doubt Continental is considering at this time."

bocastephen

From CO's customers:

No thanks, we're good here.

bidhere23

CO - please do not join forces with the evil AA. They are the king of extra fees (even before their baggage fees).

perezoso

I still vote for Star Alliance over OneWorld...

Assuming bankruptcy(ies) of other majors are imminent, could CO possibly be thinking that it can hold on long enough that the disintegration of UA or AA could leave it in a more desirable position as a lead US-based partner in another alliance? Or even for a new alliance to emerge? Seems to me that CO is trying to keep a foot in every door...

Renard

As if there were any additional reasons for not wanting an alliance with AA, today's extra fee for the first piece of luggage just added another one.

pbarnette

Let's see. US started the fees for the second bag. AA started with the fees for the first. NW started with the seat choice. US just plain stinks. UA has old and ratty planes. Have I missed any of the usual complaints?

This is put up or shut up time. All of the carriers will have to make dramatic changes. I don't fault AA for pointing out the obvious.

And exactly who would everyone propose CO should join up with? AS, so that they can invest in the money-losing domestic market? LH and *A, when they seem happy to build B6 at the expense of their current partners? Stick with ST, while DL/KL/AF/NW/etal build a TATL network (one with a huge presence at JFK) that will reach further into Europe from more US gateways than CO can match? Or should CO go it alone against the big Euro and Asian carriers, hoping against hope that the 787s aren't delayed even further?

Look at IAH. EK has moved in with flights to the Middle East. SQ has swooped in with flights to Moscow/Singapore. These should be flagship routes for CO, but they just don't have enough capacity to compete. Something has to be done, and if BA/AA are the only ones willing to dance...

supermasterphil

I agree. CO clearly has to do something, they can't compete all by themselves. It was smart of CO to wait as long as it was waiting in former times but NOW it's time to do something!

bocastephen

Wait for UA to crap out, buy it's good parts, take over the leadership of *A, then merge with AS. Voila. Something done - smartly.

Tod E Tosser

What do you do if the congresscritters from UA's hub cities/states won't let them go under so easily? You vote for my bailout, and I'll vote for your bailout/pork projects. This is not much of a plan as far as I'm concerned. As Mr. Kellner stated at the first IAH do, this industry has low barriers to entry and high barriers to exit.

bocastephen

Fine - if they want to bail out UA, then they get to bail out everyone else too.

How about these lazy Congress critters do something useful, like tackle the gas/fuel problem at the root instead of bailing out people and businesses failing because of the root problem.

KD5MDK

You mean bombing China and India back to the stone age so they don't keep buying oil on the international market?

Tod E Tosser

You're making an assumption that a possible bailout would be industry-wide and would treat all carriers evenly. What if there's a UA-only bailout, or one or two airlines realize a major competitive advantage due to effective lobbying?

Some of the causes of spiking energy prices are beyond congress' control. How are they supposed to get China and other nations to stop capping retail prices at crazy-low levels, thereby artificially inflating demand? China's politicos don't care that their stupidity is causing severe shortages any freshman econ student could predict. They seem unlikely to risk the social unrest spurred by a sudden energy price jump until the Olympics are over.

supermasterphil

Why would they give a newbie with low standards in comparison to the majority of the *A members the leadership?

So far, there are SQ,SK,AC,UA and LH, the founding members who are "leading". CO you bet on the wrong horse in the past, if you want to join, get in line with AI, CA and TK... Why would you be allowed to jump the line

You are more than welcome to join but don't come up with that arrogance you would be taking over.

bocastephen

These alliances are by and large a product of US marketing - a US carrier should be the flag bearer for the alliance, notwithstanding the sheer difference in fleet size and coverage between a US carrier and its foreign alliance partners.

bocastephen

Bailing out a specific company while letting others flop in the breeze? I'm still aghast at what they did for Wall Street, but if they bailed out UA or UA and one other while ignoring the rest, well, then I (if I was CEO) would call up my colleagues at the other carriers and move together on pooling lobbying resources to both block the bailout and tear apart the (re)election campaigns of any such Congress Critter who supported it.

China and India are only a part of the problem, and really they're the difference between 30/bbl oil and 70/bbl oil - the problem here is rampant non-hedged speculation driving up the futures prices for profit, not to reflect the true balance of supply and demand.

At Omni, I've often wrote of what we should be doing - buying Iraqi oil at a deep discount, generating needed cash for Iraq legitimately, while filling up the national reserve pool at discounted cost, then dumping oil from the reserve pool to US refiners at a discount - they no longer need to buy oil on the open market, and the result could be enough of a short term jolt to send the speculators into an out of control selling frenzy, wiping out most of them in the process.

In futures trading and speculation, you pays your money, you takes your chances.