Nah, I was aware that your info was fairly new but not fresh from the rumor mill. No intent to dis you or your management. I wonder how much quibbling they were doing with that statement though - were conversations held between intermediaries?
It looks like UAL management is playing with USAirways management to try and bring CAL to the table. ... just my guess. I don't know where they plan on finding the investment capital - I'm guessing that someone would be tossing ~$2B down the drain on a merge. However, I'd think that it'd be easier to find investment capital with CAL as UAL's partner rather than U.
Someone dumped ~$1.5B into DAL/NWA; probably Air France. I don't know if UAL's got an investor lined up or not. Tilton's been pretty good with Wall Street contacts, and $2B is less than the debt that UAL paid down last year.

Dude, I don't want a merge any more than you. But with DAL/NWA, CAL's likely to find themselves frozen out of SkyTeam. Less SkyTeam bookings mean less international growth.
Let's hope that if it does happen, it isn't the royal clusterfukc that has occurred on the last several mergers.