American Airline and US Airways Merger Essay

The merger is expected to take a total of 5 years with an end result of a fleet of nearly one thousand planes covering more than 150 cities in United States with connecting flights to more than 30 countries around the world. All evidence indicates that a merger between Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airlines can be completed within 5 years and will be successful in helping the merged company become the industry leader in low-cost, high customer service airline carriers in North America. The minor obstacles such as redundant cities, a balloon payment owed by JetBlue, redundant Point of Sales Systems and baggage tracking systems, and a surplus of employees, is negligible and easily resolved during the 5-year merge period. A few decisions will still need to be made such as what to do about employee contracts being different between the two carriers and pension plans but the merger is being given a good to very good rating for its chances to succeed as

Two of the largest competing airlines in America may seem to have a lot in common to a consumer’s eye: big commercial planes, friendly staff, one free carry-on bag, complimentary snacks. Maybe the biggest comparison of them all is how much of the airline market these two companies take up. But for every similarity, there must be a difference. Beyond contrasting ticket prices, there are many fronts on which to compare Southwest Airlines and American Airlines. To begin when the companies began, American Airlines was established approximately 40 years sooner than Southwest Airlines as a result of a merger. In terms of people, Southwest Airlines currently has just about half the number of employees that American does. However, to truly compare the two companies, the organization itself must be researched and analyzed. Southwest Airlines and American Airlines appear to be very different to this day in terms of organizational culture, team dynamics, and conflict and negotiation.

The combined United Continental Holdings competes on the basis of having what it terms "the most comprehensive global route network", modern planes, and "an industry-leading loyalty program" (UnitedContinentalHoldings.com, 2012). The merger between two struggling airlines was announced in 2010, and the United brand is going to be the one that is most prominent going forward. There have recently been some minor implementation problems in unwinding the Continental name (Martin, 2012).

In the past three years the airline industry has faced an unparalleled list of challenges and American Airlines has certainly had more than the others. Year by year AA has tried to recover with a great deal of effort to turn the company around. The strategies they are applying to counteract the status are : Lower costs to compete, give to the customers the service they are expecting

The Risk of Entry by Potential Competitors – Since the deregulation of the airline industry in 1978 over 1,300 new airlines have opened for business. However, most now are bankrupt or merged with the other carriers to stay workable. The established giants were Delta (merged with Northwest), American Airlines (merged with U.S. Airways), United Airlines (merged with Continental), and now Alaska Airlines (merged with Virgin America). Now the Low-Cost Carriers (LCCs) are posing a massive threat which includes Southwest Airlines (merged with Air Tran), and JetBlue.

Decreased online reservation can be a problem: customers like me prefer to purchase ticket via travel agencies to have different options and better deals compare to going directly to an airline website to purchase ticket. Another problem will be how will a loyal customer that earned points/rewards on Expedia or Priceline use the points on Southwest website after the merger? This can be an issue because travel agencies websites offers rewards programs that let you earned points as a frequent flyer and the points can be used for future purchases. In addition, Southwest offers only one option of seating while tickets bought on third party websites have the options of choosing seat like first- class, business class and economy class. That can be an issue for major business travelers who prefer spacious seating, luxury and privacy. After the merging, managers should continue to use travel agency websites in order to boost sales and keep up with competition. Also, managers should to encourage customers to sign up for rewards offer by signing up for a credit card, as it’s a good marketing strategy. Managers should cut down cost by not having to customize AirTran flights and the options of first-class and economy seating should still be offered.

The domestic US airline industry has been intensely competitive since it was deregulated in 1978. In a regulated environment, most of the cost increases were passed along to consumers under a fixed rate-of-return based pricing scheme. This allowed labor unions to acquire a lot of power and workers at the major incumbent carriers were overpaid. After deregulation, the incumbent carriers felt the most pain, and the floodgates had opened for newer more nimble carriers with lower cost structures to compete head-on with the established airlines. There were several bankruptcies followed by a wave of consolidation with the fittest carriers surviving and the rest being

Continental, Northwest and United Airlines intended to adopt part of the new fare system. Continental, because it is in Chapter

The merger between American Airlines and U.S. Airways is one that can be explained using static game theory models. The two players in the game would be American Airlines and U.S. Airways. Each one of the players would have something to gain from the merger, but they would also have something to lose. In this game American Airlines is our first player. American Airlines’ potential payoff is merging with a company that is maximizing profits, but is also lacking in the customer service department. U.S. Airways is player two, and in this game they are merging with a business that is suffering from chapter 11 bankruptcy, but is excelling in customer service.

At the onset of the airline industry in the United States, major network airlines were the sole providers of air travel. This multifaceted industry was a difficult industry to break into as a consequence of “sophisticated customer segmentation, hub-and spoke models and costly information systems for reservations, fare wars and intense competition” (Thompson 2008). Shrinkage in airline ticket prices augmented the demand for airline travel. Many markets were simply deserted or over-looked by major network airlines; this is a region a fresh “second tier of service providers” could enter into. This endeavor proved to provide a consumer savings of billions per year. Thus in June of 1971, after a tumultuous battle with other Texas-based

American Airlines is one of the major airways in U.S, with its headquarters located in Fort Worth, Texas. It was founded in 1930 and began operating in 1934 as American Airways. It has been conducting extensive domestic and international scheduled flights to Europe, Asia, the Caribbean, South America, and North America. This airline has five main network centers located in airports of key cities. These include, Miami, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and its main base Dallas. The actual CEO of the company is Doug Parker, the chairman is Tom Horton, and the president is Scott Kirby. In the past years, American Airlines faced a downfall in its profits which caused serious injuries to the company.

The results of airline deregulation speak for themselves. Since the government got out of the airline business, not only has there been a drop in prices and an increase in routes, there has also been a remarkable increase in airline service and safety. Airline deregulation should be seen as the crowning jewel of a federal de-regulatory emphasis. Prices are down: Airline

bankruptcy protection bigger and better than ever. It also solidified American Airlines as the largest airline in the world. This merger has become to cornerstone of American Airlines affecting all areas of the organization both internal and external.

3,4- The Airline industry and the market The airline industry is large, specially in the United States, mainly due to the “ Deregulation” of the industry. In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Board was created to control the growth of the air transportation industry. This board had the authority to control entry, exit, prices and methods of competition. In the late 1970 this structure was found inefficient and in 1978 deregulation took place. Due to the deregulation of the industry competition intensified, prices dropped, and the number of people travelling increased. Many new companies emerged and regional airlines saw deregulation as an opportunity to expand. Due to the rise in competition, by 1986 mergers started to take place and in 1987 64.8% of the market was controlled by the four largest airlines. The demand for air travel is determined mainly by price, studies revealed that half of the leisure travellers and on quarter of business travellers did not have a preference for a particular airline, which means that prices determined the

The years since regulation have been rocky for the airline industry. Airline after airline has declared bankruptcy and either ceased existence or emerged as a weaker airline. The surviving airlines have done so by merging and protecting their territory with tactics not even dreamed of in most industries. Robert Crandall said it best when he noted, "This is a nasty, rotten business (Petzinger,1995)." You would think that with the competition allowed by deregulation that a large number of new names would exist, but that does not seem to be the case. Most Americans still travel on American, Delta, United, US Airways, or Continental (Kane, 2003). The only true champion of deregulation is Southwest Airlines, whose success is paving the way for others such as JetBlue, but the obstacles are enormous. Initially, the airlines went after each other by slashing fares and driving competitors out of business. The industry quickly learned that although this tactic was effective, it was not profitable, and it was more economical to focus on controlling the air out of a few cities (hubs) than to attempt to directly compete in every single market. Since most of the major airlines already had key cities in which they controlled most of the takeoff and landing slots, airlines could charge higher fares and take in greater profits without any real head to head