anair79 wrote:

To answer American's alliances with Alaska & JetBlue, should United set up an alliance or merge with Frontier Airlines ?

Frontier has an hub in Denver and focus cities in Atlanta, Cleveland, Las Vegas, Miami, Orlando, Philadelphia, Tampa and Trenton.
So, United will gain some footprint in ATL and MIA.
Otherwise, this proposal could support blocking AA/B6 alliance.

What do you think?

usflyer msp wrote:

United actually has more flights in ATL and MIA than F9 because most of F9 routes are 3-4x a week. A least an NK merger would give them an FLL "hub" - a merger with F9 gives UA nothing they don't have already.

TexasAirCorp wrote:

phatfarmlines wrote:

To all those denigrating the OP on the topic of choice, as wild of a concept is, remember PE eventually folded into CO

You’re talking about something wildly different that almost proved that merging a full-service carrier with an LCC is a terrible idea.

CO at the time was pretty different to UA, it called itself a ‘full-service, low-fare carrier’ and was essentially a look-a-like of what Alaska is today. PE was on its knees and urgently in need of a buyer, and was scooped up by Texas Air (CO’s former parent company, nice name!). The deal was done largely out of spite since PE’s founder Don Burr was the best mate of Frank Lorenzo (Texas Air/Continental boss), and the two became enemies when Burr left Texas Air to start PE. Once the deal was complete, Texas Air realised what a mess PE was financially. At the time, Texas Air also had the mess that was Eastern on its plate, and didn’t have the time or money to make PE viable, so it simply took PE’s EWR hub and old aircraft and gave them to CO. It was not a ‘merger’ or ‘alliance’, it was a parent company transferring assets from one subsidiary to another.

When CO first took over the EWR hub, it was an absolute shambles. Ex-PE staff had no idea how to use CO equipment, it’s all-economy aircraft were in a awful state and in no way compatible with CO’s somewhat high-class operation. They didn’t have onboard ovens or proper catering equipment so meals couldn’t be served, CO’s overall on time performance dropped to less than 50% due to the EWR chaos, and it went from declaring steady profits to one of the biggest losses ever seen in the industry at the time. CO didn’t have the greatest reputation at the time, but after the PE acquisition it became basically the worst airline in the US, even infrequent travellers would run a mile from it. The massive drop in revenue, plus the debts PE had racked up, is partially what led CO to bankruptcy in 1990.

F9 is no where near the state that PE was when CO took it over, and even if it was, trying to encourage loyal UA pax in F9’s plastic fixed-back seats would end in a disaster.