It's Official: Airline merger thread

[AZCB34]

AWA and US AIrways are going to merge:


http://www.shareholder.com/americawe...leaseID=163980

Those who know AWA employees, better say a prayer. USAir employees generally have alot more seniority and their unions have made huge concessions recently. All this could lead to massive AWA layoffs.

[thirty-two]

crap

i liked AWA... i dont want them to merge!

[40yearfan]

According to AWA, they each have different routes in different parts of the country. Would that still necessitate large lay-offs?

[krepitch]

Originally Posted by 40yearfan

According to AWA, they each have different routes in different parts of the country. Would that still necessitate large lay-offs?

Key word 'necessitate'.

If you go to the AWA website, though, they actually list quite a few open positions.

[WizardOfAz]

US Airways Group Inc. and America West Holdings Corp., the nation's seventh and eighth largest carriers, are merging to create an airline designed to better compete with lower-cost competitors.

The combined company will fly as US Airways and would become the nation's sixth largest airline in terms of passenger miles, an industry measurement. It will be funded by $1.5 billion in new capital from a variety of investors, including aircraft maker Airbus.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050519/us_ai...est.html?.v=16

[WizardOfAz]

Originally Posted by 40yearfan

According to AWA, they each have different routes in different parts of the country. Would that still necessitate large lay-offs?

Parker said he was not sure how many jobs would be cut if the merger goes through. US Airways employs about 30,000, including 600 at its headquarters in Arlington, Va. America West employs about 14,000.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050519/us_ai...est.html?.v=16

[AZCB34]

Originally Posted by 40yearfan

According to AWA, they each have different routes in different parts of the country. Would that still necessitate large lay-offs?

Hard to say because the deal details have not surfaced yet. There are many questions however that could lead to large layoffs.

1. Where is the HQ going to be? You wouldn't have 2 HQ running the show so one would be shut down entirely or scaled back quite a bit.

2. How res centers do they really need? The fewer facilities the better from a cost standpoint. This may be more of a Reno concern from AWA perspective but nonetheless...

3. How many maintenance facilities do they need? This could lead to a shutdown of a facility...again cost to run the facility is an issue

4. How badly do the operations personnel duplicate jobs...ie revenue departments, frequent flyer dept etc?

5. How many aircraft will actually be used? I know they were working on some elase deal but they should (and likely will) cut loose a bunch of aircraft because they really don't need them and that could cause pilots/flight attendants to be let go.

6. What routes are heavily duplicated or slated for outright termination? Terminating (more likely than duplication) routes leads to localized layoffs but that could have a trickle down effect to places like PHX and LAS.

Merging two airlines that are both losing money and not massively restructuring their operations from the top down is the height of stupidity. Maybe they can make cuts through attrition but at some point, all logic points to layoffs and not small ones either.

I have yet to read.hear any specifics but they cannot sit there bleeding money (USAir is hemorraghing cash and AWA is slightly profitable...last Q at least) waiting for the near retirement folks to bolt. JMHO.

Anyone find it strange that the best positioned of the two (AWA) is agreeing to rid their name and taking on the name of the POS airline that should really have ceased to exist a decade ago?

[AZCB34]

Also the union battle that will occur. When the carriers fully combine the unions will be battling and usually the most senior people avoid the bloodletting, if there is any.

[Brian in Mesa]

Originally Posted by WizardOfAz

I'm stupid...please merge or delete.

You?!

[DeAnna]

Being in the travel industry, it's a sad day to see AmWest close shop. My guess is that since cost of living is so much lower here than in Virginia, a lot of the res and operations may transfer over here.

[NickelBack]

Originally Posted by AZCB34

1. Where is the HQ going to be?

Tempe.

[AZCB34]

Originally Posted by NickelBack

Tempe.

That doesn't mean there still won't be cuts locally at the HQ here...probably just not as many as there would have been had they adopted Alexandria as HQ.

[Donald]

From everything I've read, it looks like AWA is running the show, and US Air is the name because they want to be national and ditch the "West" sounding portion of their name.

But everything else sounds very AWA-centric, from HQ to positioning in the market.

Which I think is a good thing...AWA has done a good job as of late and I enjoy flying them.