I know, Kellner has been using this one line for years. However, I find it hard to believe that Continental will cease to exist in a few years because they did not participate in this current wave of consolidation. Is all the hype definitely true? Is a DAL/NWA merger absolutely guaranteed to be a success? From the outside, it seems that their seniority list integration is about to become very contentious and may cause problems for the combined entity. I believe its too simplistic to state that consolidation is the only way.
I do agree that UAL is the best fit for CAL. However, I really don't think there is a chance that the two pilot groups will be integrated amicably. It will be a huge mess that will negatively impact the company and the careers of many pilots for years to come. In my opinion, a CAL/UAL merger with oil at its current price and the economy in its current sate will lead to layoffs. This fact will make pilot integration that much more intense. Hopefully I am wrong.
Kellner sees CAL being frozen out of Skyteam. A lot of revenue is derived from codeshare bookings. AF/KLM are supposedly the ones who dumped the money into DAL/NWA to make it happen. (I was completely wrong about their merger going through - I didn't see them as being able to raise capital to make it happen. They found $1.5B somewhere and right now, all roads lead to France).
With a large stake in DAL/NWA's future, which American company do you think will receive the bulk of the codeshare flying? That's where Kellner's concerned and he is right to be concerned about it.
On the other hand, a CAL/UAL merger would likely result in the combined company being in the DeathStar Alliance. While the DeathStar already has a lot of Caribbean presence with another US partner, I suspect that a lot of those bookings would end up with the combined CAL/UAL, resulting in the second US DeathStar partner finding themselves in the same position as CAL is currently in with Skyteam.
Pilot groups will never integrate amicably. I don't know why Moak didn't simply agree to go direct to binding arbitration; that would have been the best route. NWA has a different seniority integration idea than DAL - that stuff is best left to a neutral third party. Your idea of a seniority integration with UAL is probably different than mine with CAL - again, better to go direct to binding arbitration and save some time. No need to get all worked up about it.
As far as furloughs go, I think that they're going to happen whether or not a merger takes place. There will be aircraft parked and block hour reductions. The economic environment is not improving. Oil prices are rising and although most of these costs are being passed on, bookings are going to start to fall off a cliff.
As far as mergers go, I think that Moak and Delta made a huge paradigm shift where the employees are able to benefit from a merger. I think that he really stepped on it by not agreeing to binding arbitration of the seniority lists - it would have eliminated a lot of bad feelings.
I can only hope that our MECs are learning the good and bad points of the DAL/NWA merger.
