Dallas to Tempe: ‘Yes, Yes, I Will!’: American Airlines and US Airways FINALLY Announ

[NYCA News]

NYCAviation:

Dallas to Tempe: ‘Yes, Yes, I Will!’: American Airlines and US Airways FINALLY Announce Merger

American Airlines and US Airways today announced their intention to merge, ending months—if not years—of rumor and speculation. The move will create the world’s largest airline.
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[JHNA57]

"Yes, Yes I Will"

I guess its appropriate for Valentine's Day!

[megatop412]

Come and get 'em! All the USAir paint you can stand while it lasts here at PHL

[lijk604]

More importantly, if you do not already have the US Star Alliance birds...I feel those will be the first to go into the paint shop.

[gonzalu]

Oh, NO!!

I was just thinking of the retro birds in USAir colors... they will be American Airline titles with retro schemes? I hope they preserve them...

[Spunker]

Well, I guess it was inevitable. I wonder what hubs will be getting the downsizing axe. I imagine Philly will be trimmed a bit and LaGuardia bolstered by the merger. Curious to see what happens in Boston as both of their presence's have dwindled of late. Their International network will be one of great envy.

[hiss srq]

This has been long coming and is in my opinion part of the background logic on why USAirways was willing to trim LGA soo much as it did. It was a very pre planned long game by Parker. LaGuardia is one of the crown jewl markets for USAirways and during the grey period right after US/HP announced was the only market keeping US afloat. I just got off of the share holder confrence call and Horton said several things along with Doug Parker that grabbed me. One was that Horton had been watching US for the better part of 20 years for synergies, the other being that the actual LOI was signed by both parties very early in January. This merger has been a behind the scene done deal since 2009 in otherwords. They played a very good long game and I am genuinely excited at the prospects for the industry and this merged company as a result of this merger. The numbers are staggering. Nearly 100,000 employees, when all orders are satisfied over 1,000 airplanes, not counting the garunteed loss of some frequent fliers, the combined number of customers in loyalty programs exceeds 100 million alone, they will have a grasp on every large international fying O&D catchment in the nation when you combine AA's 4 corners policy with US Airways mid road game they play, and they will control the TATL market as we know it. This is not entirely a bad thing for other airlines though because Star Alliance will get a bolster in fliers at United for the Star loyal. Additionally, it will open the bread basket for airlines like JetBlue to now enter some of the key markets and cherry pick loyalty customers with a mix of product and market in my opinion. I see this to be a major win win for most, I feel like the one who will have to work hardest now will be United as they do already have internal issues post merger and Chicago and LAX have always been battle grounds, given the new expanse of market that the combined AA will own, the ability to connect into just about any market with one stop or less from ORD, United will need to do serious work to protect itself. As for EWR, as much as it is a NY metro market, it is also it's own market in alot of senses with a dedicated catchement in and of itself. The wild card to watch close is PHL, PHX is a dead recon to become a purely regionalized hub to cover LAX backflows. Congrats to all of my former US Airways family that read this board. As an outsider I anxiously wait with excitement to see how your roads future will become better as a result of this.

[Delta777LR]

Man I gonna miss the US scheme! Id rather see more of those around than the crappy new AA scheme

[steve1840]

Man I gonna miss the US scheme! Id rather see more of those around than the crappy new AA scheme

Seriously? I mean, the new AA scheme is not the greatest, but it definitely looks better than the USAirways scheme. I'm glad that they are going tot he new scheme as I was worried before the "new american" was unveilled, that they would go with a crappy "euro white" scheme.

[Kris V]

Bye to the MD-80s as they will leave the fleet much quicker now.

[steve1840]

Bye to the MD-80s as they will leave the fleet much quicker now.

Yes, that is a very unfortunate bye-product of this merger....the accelorated retirement of the maddogs.....

[MarkLawrence]

And for US - the accelerated departure of the 737-400's..

[steve1840]

I wont miss those as much.....they are starting to look horrible. inside and out.

[JeffinMass]

The older aircraft will be leaving in time because there is a massive Boeing/Airbus order for new single aisle aircraft and 42 B787s.

[Mateo]

+1 for the James Joyce reference