Delta, United talking merger

Oh, good. Two times the fail. And higher prices for all!

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/14/news/companies/delta_united/index.htm?cnn=yes

 

They can combine forces to find new, innovative ways to suck.

 

I just talked to one of my old college professors (via e-mail), who is an industry analyst, and she said it ain't gonna happen.

 

USAir/AmerWest got away with it, but can't see a pure major-major marriage passing muster.

 

Why wouldn't it pass? There would still be lots of airlines out there. Even a lot of airlines on the same routes wouldn't there?

 

I was kind of surprised by the Delta talks. Always seemed like it would be a USAir-United merger.

The problem for United is that it has little presence in the east; only Dulles is a true east-coast hub. They're covered well in the west with Denver, San Fran and LAX (and Sea-Tac, to a lesser extent), which explains their significant presence on the trans-Pacific routes to Sydney, Narita, Hong Kong, etc.

Adding Atlanta as a second hub would provide a better foothold in the east; still, it wouldn't be nearly as advantageous as gaining USAir's hubs in Charlotte and Philly, IMO.

 

They could call it "Delited."

 

No. 2 and No. 3 is called anti-trust.