The Sydney Morning Herald recently speculated about the impact of a United-Continental merger on the Australian airline market: The Americans know they will have to become even better pals if they are successfully to merge their companies to form...
50,000 Miles for United Chase Visa
If you missed the offer last time, Chase had again made available a 50,000 mile bonus promotion for signing up for their United Signature Visa card. Apply here–and do it quickly if you are interested. The bonus miles will...
United Offering Pre-Reserved BOB Meals in Economy on Select International and P.S. Flights
If you find yourself on UA900 next month, United’s non-stop service from San Francisco to Frankfurt, you now have the option to reserve premium meals for purchase in Economy. Now during a special trial offer, you can reserve an...
New VDB Policy on United Airlines–$400 Travel Credit ONLY
According to reports on Flyertalk, United will implement a new voluntary denied boarding policy starting on Tuesday. The current VDB compensation on domestic flights is a choice between travel credits or a round-trip voucher good for any United-operated trip...
My Brother’s Observation from United First
My younger brother is not a frequent flyer, but I spoil him when he does fly and he usually ends up in First Class. We exchanged the following text messages today before his United flight: HIM: Douchebag in 1A upon being...
Hawaiian Airlines Wins Approval for New Honolulu-Tokyo Haneda Route
Hawaiian Airlines will begin daily service from Honolulu to Tokyo Haneda this October, after winning approval for the new route from the DOT on Friday. With the "Open Skies" pact signed by the US and Japan last December, Hawaiian,...
US Airways Takes Offense to Jeff Smisek’s Poetic Flourish
The Wall Street Journal has been quite humorous this week in covering the UA-CO merger: Two years ago, Continental Airlines Inc. spurned United Airlines’ proposal to marry, believing the time wasn’t right. On Monday, Jeff Smisek, Continental’s chairman and chief executive,...
Glenn Tilton says bloggers have too much time on their hands
Glenn Tilton joined Richard Quest on CNN today to discuss the United-Continental merger. As reported on Flyertalk, The last question Quest had was: "On the internet bloggers are all over this merger. Flyertalkers are having a hard time determining...
CO/UA Merger: Disappointing Livery and a New Slogan: "Let’s Fly Together"
Check out the official United-Continental merger website. “Work hard. Fly right.” and “It’s time to fly” weren’t great slogans, but “Let’s Fly Together” is a lame and uninspired slogan of the new combined carrier. It’s not even cute. Even...
United Will Buy Continental for $3.2BN
Numerous media outlets are reporting that the UA-CO merger has been finalized. UAL Corp, parent of United Airlines, will buy Continental Airlines Inc. for $3.2 billion, forming the world’s largest carrier in a merger that further shrinks the embattled U.S. airline industry...
Does Houston Win Even if New UA-CO HQs is in Chicago?
We still don’t have an official announcement about a merger, but numerous news stories hint that an agreement has been reached and a formal announcement is imminent. Many in Houston are moaning about losing jobs if the new airline...
Los Angeles to Honolulu Hawaiian Service: Continental vs. United
vs. The two soon may be one, but I had a chance to try out Continental’s Hawaiian service recently from LAX-HNL and provide this report to compare their service to United’s on the same route. Continental 3 LAX-HNL...
United Records First Operating Profit since 2000
It’s been a decade since United reported a first quarter operating profit, but in a sign that the airline industry is recovering, UA reported a $58MN operating profit today. Still, UA lost $82MN or $0.49/share overall–a big improvement over...
New Obstacle in United-Continental Merger
With both CAL and UAUA rising (though United is rising more quickly), a new roadblock has arisen in merger talks: …The two sides disagree over the value of the share prices that would be used to calculate a stock...
Merge By May? United and Continental Talks Heat Up
“I WANT CO!” image courtesy Wall Street Journal We all knew the “talks” between US and UA were just a ruse: Negotiations between UAL Corp.’s United Airlines and Continental Airlines Inc. are picking up pace, with parties believing a merger...
Missed My First Upgrade in Two Years on United!
After going 8/8 with United’s new UDU program and not missing a requested upgrade in over two years (going back to my days a Premier Executive) I failed to clear on a SFO-PHL flight this afternoon. The transcon was...
United Delays Launch of Dulles – Lagos, Nigeria Route
Bad news for those of you who took advantage of UA’s introductory fares to Nigeria: United Airlines said it will delay the start of planned flights to Lagos, Nigeria, because of regulatory issues. The flights had been set to...
Nearly Denied Boarding on TACA…and this wasn’t an oversell situation
I guess it was a bad idea to identify myself as a blogger and start taking pictures onboard my TACA flight from San Salvador to Washington Dulles earlier this evening. The way the purser ran into the cockpit to...
A Day in the Life of a United Airlines Customer Relations Representative
Few things are more irksome to me than writing to an airline about a problem and receiving a form letter in return that does not address my concerns and sometimes is so poorly constructed grammatically that I have to...
Flying East: Day or Night Flying?
I travel frequently between the East Coast and Southern California and have flown east almost exclusively on redeyes the last three years. A few weeks ago, I decided to fly during the day instead so I could get more...
