MORE GOOD NEWS FROM CONTINENTAL

My February 22nd post was titled “Great News From Continental”. The news was that this airline, unlike any other U.S. airline, has ordered from Boeing some new 777 planes, an order which adds to previous 787 order (of course, at this point no one knows when those planes will enter service) and some 24 new 737-900s that some of them have already been delivered to CO.

All those orders have positioned CO as the youngest fleet airline in the U.S. for the coming years, and this means also the airline with the most economically efficient fleet.

But right after that came some news that were not so good: CO has started talks with United Airlines, focusing on a possible merger amid the one of Delta and Northwest. Unlike the DL-NWA merger, which made much sense, a possible CO-UA merger did not do the same. Basically it was a union between a successful, efficient airline (CO), as shown by the new 777 order, and a severely ailing behemoth airline (UA).

It turns out that I wasn’t the only one thinking that way. As this CO news release from April 27th shows, CO’s senior executives have also thought that a merger with UA is not such a good idea, to put it mildly.

Thus, the good news are that CO stays independent, and hopefully more successful than its American contemporaries.

Tags: consolidation, Continental, U.S. Airlines, United