Please read this article.
I'm not going to highlight the obvious sentence in the article but know and accept that it was the reality...the numbers are the numbers.
The mergers were GOING to happen. The whole decade was spent preparing and posturing. It doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Some need to come to the realization that things could have turned out worse for them....much worse. Let's accept that and move on, shall we?
M&A Flashback: United Continental Cleared For Takeoff
This story appears in the May 4, 2015 issue of Forbes.
Airline stocks have capitalized on lower oil prices to extend their best rally in years, but the real seeds of their turnaround were planted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.
Continental and United first discussed joining forces in May of that year before the collapsing U.S. economy put those plans on hold. Talks revived in 2009 once the markets found their footing; the marriage was consummated in 2010, forming United Continental Holdings UAL -0.81%.
The tie-up marked the midpoint of the consolidations that shrunk the number of old-line carriers by half, following the 2008 merger of Delta Air Lines DAL -1.3% and Northwest and ahead of the 2013 hookup of American and US Airways as the new American Airlines Group AAL +0.33%.
Safety In Numbers
Continental and United had both been through bankruptcy prior to their merger, but at the time of the transaction Continental was in danger of slipping into Chapter 11 anew, carrying $6.3 billion in debt against just $590 million in equity.
Dealmaker-In-Chief
The night before they announced the planned merger, the two parties called President Obama to discuss it. Considering the Justice Department would later mount a stiff challenge to the American/US Airways union, the courtesy call seems even smarter in retrospect.
Bullet The Blue Sky
Bankers advising the merger used musical code names for the $3 billion all-stock merger. Continental was “Coldplay,” United “U2” and the deal itself “ Joshua Tree,” after Bono & Co.’s smash 1987 album.
Bumpy Ride
Executives were all smiles when the deal finally closed in October 2010, but the combined giant has encountered some rough weather since, regularly ranking near the bottom of annual measures of U.S. airlines’ performance.