Aim High
Grant123
FWIW after watching over 30 years of legacy regression... United is a tough call. A lot of potential energy with perplexing direction. The pros: huge widebody fleet with awesome reach, over $5 billion cash in the bank, unmatched route/hub network, great pilot group NOT intimidated by mgt, and a good fleet that can continue to earn big money for the next 10 years at which point mgt says they are looking at the next generation narrowbody (737 replacement- why buy equipment now when the next evolution is around the corner), 15% 401K contribution.
The cons: suspect mgt, suspect mgt, suspect mgt and a poor contract.
Crystal Ball- who knows. Study aviation history and you will see that todays winner HAS NOT stayed on top EVER. The merger potential is the elephant in the room. It is stated by all the prophets as a bad thing, but it will probably be beyond labors control and will set up tomorrows winners and losers. So logic would be that the early movers will get the preferred pairings and the rest will get the leftovers. It certainly proved profitable for the oil industry.
Its like the stock market; "past performance does not predict future gains".
Also, mgts point on the SFO maintenance "sale" is that they are looking for an investor to increase the capability of the facility/services.
You can't ignore the difficulty UAL has had, but the bashing is more rhetoric than fact.