NY Times reports Pardus/Bethune think NWA too messy

[Diesel-9]

757 F/O reserve bid lists show 2001 hires being awarded to next APA. There also is only 23 left bidding it in MSP and DTW so new hires could go to the 757 next year but think others may pref it soon. Much higher probability that many new hires will be going to the -320.

 

[lowecur]

Lowcur:

You're getting the picture. Everything I have heard about UAL internally has been parts, not the whole. Remember the Pan Am guys came out pretty good when Delta bought that part of PAA... and yes, the union did have issues which forced them to mortgage their offices in Herndon to fund the settlement with some PAA pilots who did not make it on the Delta life raft.

UAUA management will only be too happy to say the sale of the Pacific to Delta is a "good thing needed for the survival of the Company" if it gives them a opportunity to cash out. I would have a hard time believing they could present enough financial evidence that this scenerio is viable for their survival.

If this happens, I would expect Delta to take employees with airplanes.

The only other thing that makes sense is NWA picking up the remainder of UAL, and CAL, AMR, and US would slowly disappear. This kind of a deal would never make it past regulators.

imp:​

 

[General Lee]

Why DAL/UAL?

ORD, DEN & SFO

That's why.

Close SLC (or make it a focus city) and CVG.

NWA would fit with CAL. Close CLE and you're set.

AMR would take some of the Asia routes they'd have to spin off to pacify the regulators (who would protest the NWAsia/Air Mic "conflict").TC

Nah, DL should merge with NWA and keep all of the hubs, and just downsize MEM and CVG to focus cities. Throw UA and CAL together, and there would be some hub closures and financial chaos due to UA's poor financial health and lack of adequate restructuring in BK. Why give CAL and NWA the ability to be the biggest with the best balance sheet, when DL/NWA would do that and saddle the new CAL with huge debt? Sounds like a better plan, and the Skyteam membership would like it better anyway. Gotta remember that Air France is Delta's buddy overseas, and Air France owns KLM, which is NWA's buddy in AMS.

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[F/O]

Why not close DEN and keep SLC??? Discuss....

 

[General Lee]

But, Pardus is advocating not going the NWA route as it would involve closing CVG and MEM. They think this would somehow present regulation and union problems. How is the closing or SLC and CVG any different?

imp:​

Denver is a larger city with a larger encatchment area (COS and PUB to the South, Cheyenne to the North), but it is currently entrenched in a war with Southwest and Frontier attacking United. SLC is a Mormon enclave with great skiing on the side. SLC does give Delta some modest competition through Southwest, but there is limited growth potential due to lack of gates. Delta has been able to fortify the SLC hub, whereas United has not.

I think SLC and the Mormon church would be all over the wrong merger if it meant them losing their upcoming SLC--CDG connection (connects to Air France's huge network in CDG--a Skyteam member). If Delta left SLC I think some LCCs would flood in, not giving them the depth of coverage to all the big and small cities (Montana) Delta does. I don't know if Openskies would provide the same flights to Europe, since Delta pools pax from all over the Northwest through good feed to feed the upcoming flight, although Lufthansa does fly from Portland to Frankfurt nonstop, so anything is possible....


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[~~~^~~~]

Considerably less. MSP 757 reserve just went to someone with a hire date of 08/01 (recent recall), and MSP blockholder went to someone with a hire date of 01/99.

General, there's your upgrade.

 

[AA717driver]

So no one thinks Delta would want a massive ORD hub and a real West Coast operation (as opposed to the "mini-me" LAX op...)?

DEN has tons more O&D than SLC could ever dream of. Look at the catchment area.

I guess it would be better to inherit a MSP and DTW hub (keeps everything close to the mothership in ATL) than to jump into a turnkey operation in several large metro areas spread out across the country.

(Agreeing so as to not engage in yet another pointless discussion regarding Delta on FI.)

TC

 

[General Lee]

So no one thinks Delta would want a massive ORD hub and a real West Coast operation (as opposed to the "mini-me" LAX op...)?

DEN has tons more O&D than SLC could ever dream of. Look at the catchment area.

I guess it would be better to inherit a MSP and DTW hub (keeps everything close to the mothership in ATL) than to jump into a turnkey operation in several large metro areas spread out across the country.

(Agreeing so as to not engage in yet another pointless discussion regarding Delta on FI.)

TC

You are right, DEN does have more O&D, but the United hub is under attack and will cost more to defend. The good thing about MSP and DTW is that Northwest has done a good job of keeping out large LCCs to some extent. Airtran serves both, but to a small degree, and Southwest has a small presence in DTW. The LCCs that are based or have bases at those hubs are Spirit at DTW, and Sun Country at MSP. Both of those are not large threats to NWA dominance. Delta has Airtran in ATL, but the fall of Eastern lead to Valuejet eventually, and then Airtran. Somebody was going to fill in for Eastern eventually. Notice how Delta does not really fight Southwest head to head very often (except SLC). That would change if we merged with UAL, since UAL deals with Southwest at every one of the major hubs. (that could all change if Southwest buys Airtran)


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[General Lee]

General, there's your upgrade.

There will NOT be a DOH merger. Nope. We lost our top 2000 guys before the BK, which would put us at a huge disadvantage. Expect a percentage type merger, which means if you are in the top 5% of a company, you would be in the top 5% of a merged company. That is fair, and no windfall happens for NWA--part of the ALPA merger policy. Sure, there would be fences, but no DOH. No way. If I am in the top 50% of Delta, wouldn't that mean a left seat in the top 50% of a merged company? Probably. We shall see....

Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[michael707767]

There will NOT be a DOH merger. Nope. We lost our top 2000 guys before the BK, which would put us at a huge disadvantage. Expect a percentage type merger,

I wouldn't expect a percentage either. It will be relative seniority, widebody captains integrated with wide body captains, narrowbody captains with narrowbody captains, and so on. There will be some adjustments to that to account for retirements, aircraft orders, etc, but I don't think it would stray far from that.