Continental held merger talks with American

It's called NRT slots, and contractual routes that Air Mike holds which makes it a valuable asset. Air Mike holds a separate operating certificate, and therefore can be sold separately from the rest of CO, if needed.

I'm sure that AMR could pick up NRT slots without having to get Air Mike from CO. You have to remember that AA has a lift problem. If they acquire these slots, they are going to have get some lift to fly them and AA is short of 777 lift as it is. So I presume we are going to see AA going 772ER shopping or maybe (although highly doubtful) A340 shopping to get planes to fly these routes.

I still think that AA is going to make a play for NWA Asia service. I don't see them letting Delta get NRT fifth freedoms and lots of China service without a fight.
 
Even if your cover up material were true, it doesn't change the fact that B. Hussein Obama is sooo liberal and weak on defense that there is no freakin way anybody who cares about this country should support him.
Obama's campaign slogan is "Time for Change"! But he really hasn't said, what kind of change he's talking about, now has he? He hasn't said what he'll do about the strangle hold the Oil Companies have on this country? Or how he's going to fix the economy? Or what he'll do about the illegal immigration issue? Illegal immigration! Remember that one? That's the 900LB. Gorilla, setting in the back of the bus, that we're trying to ignore! In fact, the only thing I think he's said he'd do is, damn the Consequences, he'd bring the troops home!
 
Back to the topic at hand... AA would gain absolutely nothing from a merger with CO except a really bad headache and a whole lot of trouble with the anti-trust authorities.

If anything does happen, I rank it in the following probabilities with 1 being most likely and the rest falling from there...
1) AA makes a hostile bid for the NWA. If they don't win, they force Delta to pay more hampering them down the road
2) AA makes a bid for AS. Major hubs at SEA and PDX would finally give AA the facilities it needs for a west coast presence (SJC is a joke facilities wise). AS also has an extremely loyal customer base in SEA and PDX which could be expanded in SF Bay Area and LA giving the AA west coast operations that critical mass they've lacked.
3) AA makes a bid for US East. No one wants the disaster that is USAirways as its conglomerated whole, but hubs in Philadelphia and Charlotte would be attractive for expanding the East Coast presence. The JFK/LGA split is a headache for anyone who isn't an NYC O&D and Philly would make for a great connecting point. Charlotte is the only place in the Southeast where AA could even dream of giving DAL a run for their money.
4) AA and CO... A total WFT are they thinking. I can't see any reason to do this and the anti-trust officials would have a field day. 1 Airline dominating EWR (and LGA to a certain extent) and basically owning NYC international traffic out of EWR and JFK with DAL as the sole competition? Notgonnahappen.com. One airline dominating both IAH and DFW the only two international gateways in Texas? Notgonnahappen.com
 
Back to the topic at hand... AA would gain absolutely nothing from a merger with CO except a really bad headache and a whole lot of trouble with the anti-trust authorities.

If anything does happen, I rank it in the following probabilities with 1 being most likely and the rest falling from there...
1) AA makes a hostile bid for the NWA. If they don't win, they force Delta to pay more hampering them down the road
2) AA makes a bid for AS. Major hubs at SEA and PDX would finally give AA the facilities it needs for a west coast presence (SJC is a joke facilities wise). AS also has an extremely loyal customer base in SEA and PDX which could be expanded in SF Bay Area and LA giving the AA west coast operations that critical mass they've lacked.
3) AA makes a bid for US East. No one wants the disaster that is USAirways as its conglomerated whole, but hubs in Philadelphia and Charlotte would be attractive for expanding the East Coast presence. The JFK/LGA split is a headache for anyone who isn't an NYC O&D and Philly would make for a great connecting point. Charlotte is the only place in the Southeast where AA could even dream of giving DAL a run for their money.
4) AA and CO... A total WFT are they thinking. I can't see any reason to do this and the anti-trust officials would have a field day. One airline dominating EWR (and LGA to a certain extent) and basically owning NYC international traffic out of EWR and JFK with DAL as the sole competition? Notgonnahappen.com. One airline dominating both IAH and DFW the only two international gateways in Texas? Notgonnahappen.com
 
I'm sure that AMR could pick up NRT slots without having to get Air Mike from CO. You have to remember that AA has a lift problem. If they acquire these slots, they are going to have get some lift to fly them and AA is short of 777 lift as it is. So I presume we are going to see AA going 772ER shopping or maybe (although highly doubtful) A340 shopping to get planes to fly these routes.

I still think that AA is going to make a play for NWA Asia service. I don't see them letting Delta get NRT fifth freedoms and lots of China service without a fight.

http://www.continental.com/web/en-US/conte...orld_200802.pdf

Looking at the route map from Micronesia, I don't see anything AA would want. Even the NRT slots aren't that valuable. JAL is a oneworld partner so if we needed more lift to NRT, we'll just put them on a JAL plane.

I was hoping there would be more China access, but all they serve is Hong Kong.

I think I'm missing something. How does this entity even make money? The location Guam doesn't seem like that good of place for a connecting point.

As far as AA making a play for NW's Asia operations, forget it. There's no way a combined DL/NW would let that go. In addition, there's no reason why the regulators would force them to divest of it. There's no overlap there...why should they?
 
Looking at the route map from Micronesia, I don't see anything AA would want. Even the NRT slots aren't that valuable. JAL is a oneworld partner so if we needed more lift to NRT, we'll just put them on a JAL plane.

I was hoping there would be more China access, but all they serve is Hong Kong.

I think I'm missing something. How does this entity even make money? The location Guam doesn't seem like that good of place for a connecting point.

As far as AA making a play for NW, forget it. There's no way a combined DL/NW would let that go. In addition, there's no reason why the regulators would force them to divest of it. There's no overlap there...why should they?

I don't know why they would want it either... I would presume that CO Mike gets some nice government subsidies as it was born out of Continentals cargo and airlift operation in support of the Vietnam War back in the late 60's. This is from TIME Magazine back in the day

Pacific Spines. Continental has already made some significant starts in that direction. It ranks second only to Pan American in transporting troops and equipment between the U.S. and Viet Nam, this year will do a $60 million military business. One subsidiary, Continental Air Services, does charter work in Viet Nam, Thailand and Laos; another, Bira Air Transport, provides air-taxi service in Thailand. The newest of what Six refers to as Continental's Pacific "spines" is Air Micronesia, whose planes will fly a route linking Hawaii with such well-known islands of World War II as Guam, Kwajalein, Saipan, Truk and Okinawa.


Speaking of Continental back in the day... I wish today's airline executives were more like Bob Six and the executive who succeeded him. I remember reading a story about the then CEO of Continental battling the Lorenzo takeover by trying to turn the company into an ESOP. When the plan failed because of Lorenzo's lobbying in Sacramento, I believe the executive took his own life depressed because he thought he had failed the company and its employees... but I can't remember for sure. It's been a while since I've read any accounts of Lorenzo's CO takeover.