ABSTRACT
UAL Corp.’s United Airlines announced merger with Continental Airlines Inc. on May 3, 2010 and became the world’s largest airline. This $3 billion merger between the two airline companies lifted the beigest regulatory hurdle ever in the international aviation sector. In this paper, I will review through the timeline that covers from the announcement of the merger to the completion with major milestones noted and what role the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was playing in this merger.
TIMELINE
June 2008: CEOs of both United Airlines and Continental Airlines signed and alliance pact. The alliance is an agreement to link international networks and share technology and passenger perks. This agreement is basically a "virtual merger" that includes many of the benefits of a merger without the actual costs and restructuring involved. The alliance took effect about a year after Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines completed their merger, as that released Continental from the SkyTeam contract and allowed for the required nine-month notice. Additionally, Continental joined the Star Alliance, as Delta and Northwest merged.
April 2010: United Airlines was reported to be in serious merger discussion with US Airways.
May 2, 2010: The board of Directors at Continental and United Airlines approved a stock-swap deal that would combine them into the world’s largest airline. Both airlines have taken losses in the recession and expect the merger to generate savings of more than $1
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
Delta airline uses merger so as to be able to expend its business. In 2008 the company merged with Northwest airlines. It operates in Europe, North America and Asia/Pacific regions. Once the merger was complete, Northwest Airlines and all its constituents become wholly-owned by Delta Airlines. The merger saw to it that Delta Airlines started operating in the Northwest for FY 2008. In the period of two month that is from October of 2008 the time the merger was completed to December of 2008, the company had increased it revenues to $2 billion. Having a flexible nature, allows Delta to improve customer services, and in the long run be able to achieve its strategic objectives.
1. United Airlines is owned by the UAL Corporation and was incorporated on December 30, 1968. The actual company was formed may years before this actually in 1925 and was a private mail carrying service between Pasco, Washington, and Elko, Nevada, and from these humble beginnings they formed a were able to start a company that would come to be a global leader in the airline service. From the 1960’s to the 1980’s the company had 6 different presidents and started to expand and venture into different aspects of business other then airlines and were unable to have any success. These companies that they purchased were not a success and were later resold.
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.
Northern Airlines merged with Southeast Airlines to create the fourth largest U.S. carrier in which it inherited both an aging fleet of Boeing 727-300 aircraft and Stephen Ruth.
Globalization can be defined as “making worldwide in scope or application”(1). In this comparison of the global corporate culture of Northwest Airlines and American Airlines several areas will be addressed. The strength of the global culture with-in the companies. The fit of the company to the global marketplace, and the adaptive ness or the empowerment of the employees will be examined and compared. Perhaps more important, than whether they currently have a global atmosphere, is whether they can improve or create this atmosphere. A comparison between the two airlines will be made on their mission statements, information dissemination, global-mindedness,
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.
1. There are a few trends in the US airline industry. One is consolidation, wherein existing players merge in an attempt to lower their costs and generate operating synergies. The most recent major merger was the United Continental merger, which is still an ongoing affair, but has created the largest airline in the United States by market share (Martin, 2012). Another trend is towards low-cost carriers. In the US, Southwest has been a long-running success and JetBlue a strong new competitor, but in other countries this business model has proven exceptionally successful. The third major trend is the upward trend in jet fuel prices, and the increasing importance that this puts on hedging fuel prices and capacity management (Hinton, 2011).
The report finds that Delta Airlines has successfully emerged from its bankruptcy in 2005 to report successful returns in both 2007 and 2008. With its 2008 acquisition of Northwest Airlines Delta became the world's largest airline, further improving its position in the airline industry. Despite this current positive position report also finds potential adversities
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.
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