Etc, etc, etc.....
That's easy -- take delivery of the planes and then immediately re-sell them. Airbus wouldn't be very happy, but the A330-200s and A350s are hot commodities right now and even the A340s could be sold at the right price. The buyer might actually be Boeing, taking the Airbus planes in trade for a massive B777/B787/B747-8 order from UA, like Boeing did a few years ago in a deal with SQ. While this is all merely speculation, UA should nonetheless be able to move the contracted Airbus planes without a great deal of difficulty.
IMHO, there's not a chance of this happening. With both Tilton and Parker talking about consolidation almost constantly, the fact that a UA/US merger (no matter who would be doing the buying) has not already been announced leads me to believe that it won't happen. Of course, this industry is always full of surprises, so I suppose one should never say "never". But that said, IMHO I still don't see a UA/US merger happening.
Ref: "That's easy......" That is so farfetched, I won't even reply.
The rest:
The reason for the higher yields at IAD versus PHL is simple. 60+% of PHL's O&D is generated by LCCs - both domestic and international,
whereas less than 25% of IAD (domestic) and essentially 0% international passengers are LCC revenue. UA and particularly the 18
international carriers at IAD offer premium services - at premium prices and the O&D community has little choice but to pay - or use
connecting services. PHL's purported less Yields (I do not necessarily accept your presented data, but for the purpose of this thread won't
insist on references), have less to do with the population mix between Philadelphia and Washington O&D than with a simple situation of
passengers forced to pay non-LCC Hub (UA) premium prices, which consequently generate higher Revenue and associated Yields.
I see little difference between the quality of IAD O&D and say PIT O&D in it's heyday before US was an LCC. PIT (as well as CVG today) had similar Yields/Revenue to IAD. Replace the non-LCC dominant carrier (UA) with an LCC and you quickly reduce your overall Yields - and it has little to do with the stature of the population. Further, who is to say that if UA where to acquire US (and PHL), it would not advantage that situation by turning the airport and it's 7M catchment into a non-LCC, high Yield Hub.
Near the final stages of the 2000-2001 UA-US merger attempt, UA appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and presented a formal document wherein they committed to GROW PHL if the merger was approved, not to reduce it. They related both international and domestic growth numbers and associated percentages at PHL. I leave it to you to research the citation.
You seem to have a preconceived notion that because UA has better infrastructure and services than US, that is in itself a guarantee that UA would be the acquirer. I submit that has little to do with reality. It's obvious the UA's management is in somewhat of a panic mode to divest before another financial crisis emerges. US on the other hand has recently ordered a significant number of short, medium, long and ultra long haul aircraft for delivery through 2015. I believe that if UA cannot negotiate for a complete merger (or buyout), they will look for alternatives, such as piecemeal selling their Asian routes and aircraft and merging what is left including possibly the name, to the highest bidder - which could very well be US. Anyone who naively thinks the UA name would save the airline from fragmentation or complete dissolution should take a course on the history of PANAM and TWA.
