Why a Continental/United merger would be awful for the consumer...

Hey Lucky --

As a business traveler, there's one thing I'm excited about that obviously you wouldn't be. Industry consolidation = less price-based competition = more service and mileage-based competition.

I know you and have disagreed on this point before, but I _strongly_ believe that just as we saw during the regulated-80s and post-9/11 era, the increased price inflexibility will drive the remaining major carriers to compete on things that will directly benefit us.

Yes, prices will go up. With that, margins and the potential for some really great, innovated passenger perks becomes a reality.

Good points xj, but a few things to keep in mind. "Business travelers" is a very broad term, and includes people that travel for work on deeply discounted coach tickets and also includes people that travel full fare first. I'm betting service will improve for those that fly paid first, although not by much. One byproduct of these mergers is much less competition, and while it could mean better yields for the airlines it also gives them less of an incentive to provide a better product since you're more likely to fly them regardless of what services they provide, no? Imagine if we just had three legacies. There would be relatively little overlap and people would choose their carrier based on convenience, in my book.

However, the business traveler that this will NOT help, in my opinion, are those that upgrade, maybe other than full fare Y passengers. Most business travelers aren't different than me in the sense that their companies don't pay for full fare so they're most stuck upgrading. The upgrade percentages will definitely get much worse, in my book, so while you might have one more tomatoe on your salad in F I'm not sure what else should realistically be expected. What kind of improved services are you expecting due to a potential merger, and for what types of passengers?

Actually, if we had just three legacies, I imagine there would be tremendous overlap. Each one with a different route network out of each station, but lots of redundancy.

Example, my weekly commute SFO-DAY. On UA, I go SFO-DEN-DAY or SFO-ORD-DAY. Between those two routings, there are around 7 total itins on UA that I could book on any one day to get me there.

On NGA, I can go SFO-MSP-DAY, SFO-DTW-DAY, SFO-CVG-DAY, SFO-SLC-DAY, SFO-ATL-DAY, SFO-MEM-DAY. That's a total of 6 routings, with a few of those having a couple acceptable itins. With some consolidation to the route network, I don't have any trouble believing that NGA will be able to get me out of a UA hub and where I need to go with approximately the same convenience as UA could.

(None of this holds true for hub-to-hub flights.)

Not sure what I'm expecting, just trying to remember that it was the days of a regulated airline industry that cooked up such perks as airline lounges, mileage programs, ground transfers, meal allowances and more.

Well, I am not sure if UA is really regretting that they started with their reconfiguration. They haven't really made a lot of progress in the -- what, five months? -- since they started.

I bet they'll go two class, and I hope they'll keep E+. I would never pay for C and upgrade to F anyway, but I often enough end up in E+ for that to really matter to me as a differentiator.

If this looks like it's inevitable, I'm burning my accumulated RDMs and seeing how the 2 mergers shake out as far as SFO being my home port. I fly predominantly to Japan and Germany (for non-MR pleasure that is) and will never (on my anticipated income trajectory anyway) pay for C or F. It'll be interesting. Of course, with oil > $100, it's scary enough.

Is it time us UA elites to be signing up for a CO credit card? 20,000 Onepass, when converted to UA MP miles with merger activity, seems a great deal for the $60 annual fee.

Back on topic: good post, lucky, and I agree with your sentiment. Less competition is never good for the consumer, and the present merger wave, coupled with the bankruptcy and/or liquidation of several smaller carriers, threatens to severely harm the U.S. airline consumer in terms of both price and choice.