Originally Posted by
Mickey
With the announcement of the point share with JetBlue, I’ve been hearing a lot of rumors about mergers. Regardless if they hold any credibility, it had me curious, how do mergers typically get handled? How did the continental merger get handled? We’re both carriers Alpa? I understand, or at least I think I do, that the negotiating committees go back and forth, but what would you expect the outcome to be?
Even when you have mergers of (more or less) equals - Continental/United or Delta/Northwest ... it's a lot of messy sausage making.
United and JetBlue are not equals. Most importantly, United has a massive intercontinental widebody operation. The most predictable part of a UA/JB merger would be fencing the JB pilots off widebodies somehow. The JB pilots likely would be some protections for 220, BOS, FLL which UA doesn't have. And a decent minority of pilots, in perception or reality, would get screwed and complain about it forever.