Wings, you're right about the branding, but there's nothing that says you can't have both names out there. It's more or less what NWA's done with Midwest...
PlaneBuzz is reporting that if UA/CO do the nasty that both names would stick around for a couple of years, and that sort of makes sense in a wierd way.
AA and AS could have common ownership by yet another holding company, yet still be in compliance with their scope clauses. They'd just need to reconcile the seniority list integration.
Look at retailing.... in 2005 Federated Stores changed the names of several brands they owned (Marshall Field, L S Ayers, Robinsons-May, Hecht's, Burdines, Lazarus) to Macy's... Fields was seen as upscale. So was Lazarus, and some of the other names. Macy's? That was seen a step above Target in the midwest.... People revolted and took their business elsewhere. Same store sales for former Fields locations were down 7-10% in the following year. Macy's spent a lot of time and effort trying to win back those customers, and finally gave up trying about a year later. Some of the locations wound up being closed within the last two years.
Now, go back to 1990... Dayton-Hudson (since renamed Target...) bought Marshall Field, yet was smart enough to keep the name the same for the 15 years they owned it... The brand grew stronger over time. They eventually sold it off to May in 2004, who wound up being bought by Federated in 2005...
So... if AA does the nasty with AS, I hope they're smart enough to keep the Eskimo smiling.
