Check out the official merger website. Interesting stuff.
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Check out the official merger website. Interesting stuff.
Can you believe it, AA was the nation's biggest carrier only two years ago, now it's #3. Goodbye "proud bird with the golden tail'.
Why goodbye? What do you mean? The merger will create the largest carrier in the world. The name will be UNITED. Not Continental. Even the home base will be in Chicago. Sounds more like a buyout than a merger doesn't it? But its not. Just glad to be in the maintenance side of the house. Plus they want to beef up this area for the flights to Latin America. Nobody really wanted this but it is what it is. Look around, everyone is either buying each other out or merging. The name change is really messin with our heads though. Alot of people feel like they've really build up the Continental name up and reputation to just give it away so quickly. But that's just the superficial wounds. Keep the checks coming and you can call me what you want to call me except late for dinner.
Good luck to both airlines. Another proud name goes away for the almighty dollar. Hope you have better luck than nw/dl and believe me it is in actuality a buyout not a merger.
What makes you think its a buyout? Try this web site. Let's Fly Together Name may go away but the CAL logo lives on.
Of course it's not a buyout...
Makes great sense and as a CO retiree I love the new proposed livery....still CO but with the United name!
Only problem is what happens to CO Air Mike......
Great that you mention that one. I came over from Air Mike a few years ago, so I have some interest in what happens there. I had to start at the bottom of the seniority craft here in the states. Wonder if I'll see those years roll over after the merger. But I'm not looking for any surprises here. If it happens, more power to me.
I really do hope it works out for both airlines. At least there will be something left of Co.
Uh, what exactly is Air Mike?
I think this is a great thing. My wife works for United out of SFO, and I really hope it goes through both from the economic and personal perspective.
There will probably be some capacity cuts, and this is exactly what the industry needs.
United employees are also glad that CEO Tilton's time is short, but not short enough.
Air Mike is the affectionate name for Continental Micronesia, a wholly owned CO subsiduary based on the island of Guam....and very profitable..
' He ' made a wish, it all came true. Consolidation, we are told, is the only way forward. Who knows?! Time will tell .....
Internationally, UA's fleet consists of First, Business & Economy. CO has ' Business-First '. Do we lose First or does CO gain First ..... time will tell.
We are told that the ' intent ' is to retain the status quo in terms of routes, makes sense, since routings played such a large part in this courtship.
With that in mind - and of course, no one can predict what the outcome will be, but if we hang on to that thought, Pilots and F/A's should feel relatively safe.
That takes care of getting the aircraft in the air. Looking at what we do in order to get that aircraft into the air : Sales, Marketing, PR, Interline, E Commerce, General Ledger Accounts, Refunds, Revenue Accounting, Sales Auditing, Fraud, Training, Industry Affairs, Regulatory Affairs, Customer Relations, Accounts Payable, Cargo Accounts, Cargo Sales, Inventory Management, Pricing, Purchasing, Internal Audit, Human Resources, Payroll, Reservations, Tickets By Mail, Rate Desk ... probably a few I have forgotten.
There will be direct duplication of these Departments - at Head Office and at International locations. I would hedge my bets, as night follows day, these areas will be faced with major heartache.
Re interviewing for your own job affectively. One can only hope that an attractive package will be offered to those who have that in mind.
Accepting the route network will remain the same : Ramp, Ticketing Agents, Check In Agents, Gate Agents, Baggage Services etc will remain in tact ... the natural course of technology enhancements requiring less people is a given , regardless of mergers. I accept that, it's not unique to any one particular airline.
I'm sure there will be America West/US & Delta/Northwest members who will be able to share their experience of what their experience has been thus far ... the good, bad & the ugly:-)
I read relatively positive comments regarding Smisek ... let's hope he's the right man for the job.
We are going through this (albeit on a much smaller scale) with Frontier and Midwest. italgreco is correct in that the admin positions were all consolidated. Midwest no longer has a headquarters and many of Frontier's positions are also being moved to Republic in IND. Most positions involving customer contact and operations have remained, except for the few outstations in markets that were closed.
The absolute worst part is merging the computer systems. We still have to jump back and forth between YX and F9 systems...which isn't too bad except for our DEN-MKE flights, which both systems have flights on, and we frequently have to move non-revs back and forth between the systems.
Add in the code share complexities and it can get bad (like around spring break this year when the F9 systems weren't pulling seats out of inventory for YX flights and our Airbus 136-seaters were overbooked by 40 people!
But there are always growing and merging pains, and this too shall pass. :-)
Our main concerns for the time being is
1. Where will we end up in seniority, which in turn decides if we either stay in our station or have to relocate, or in some cases, will it cause a job loss. Not a major issue if you have alot of seniority. But a big issue if you have less than say 7 years. (And that's just a figure I threw up there because nobody really knows.)
2. Pension plan we have now is it going away or will it get frozen or rolled into 401k, go to the Pension Guarantee Benefit System or start with a fresh plan ????
Alot of other things will have to get hashed out. Like flight benefits, seniority versus company time, operation systems used, how the subsideries will get effected, recall rights, union negotiations, and everything else that goes along a merger. But seems everyone is pretty much taking it in stride. Not much we can do about anything right now. No control. It is what it is.
I am upbeat about the merger but I plan to retire soon from UAL. Should I wait to ensure non-rev benefits all both UAL and CAL routes? With a terminated pension from UAL, passes are my main concern. Any ideas?
Pacificlaura : That's a difficult one to answer. To be honest, the only reason why I came into this industry 100 years ago. When PA was split between UA/DL, UA honoured PA seniority. Thus if you completed
say, 20 years with PA and were due to retire within a year of UA taking over, you were entitled to the same flight benefits as if you were UA for the same period.
Whilst it was not a merger per se, UA took over the PA routes it had acquired. I'm still not sure what benefits CO enjoy, ours are certainly very good. They spoke today about a timeline and I'm lead to believe it will be 2 years .... can you hold for that long ???? It may be worth having a word with HR, likewise, CO staff in the same position as yourself. Thinking out load though, if the new company is set to be named United, surely they cannot restrict you on routes : I.e. these were true CO and these were true UA ... but I guess stranger things have happened !
Throw that flight benny question along with the other 100 or so questions undetermined thus far. We just don't know. UA has good flight benefits? I sure hope so because I thought ours was pretty good. I would suspect that upon the merger, you can fly all UA routes regardless of wheather you retired from UA or CO. Looks like in this merger, we (CO) is the smaller fish by far. Was looking over the UA seniority list and its quite intimidating to say the least. But we don't really know what's what, how they will hash it out and how many technicians are actually working as A&P's. How many will take the early out, how many will not want to move around or relocate. So its not even worth looking at this list. Check your PM box, for a rough estimate on travel benefits.
I'm excited. I'm a CO retiree, living in Bangkok. Now that we will be able to fly on United, I can use them out of BKK, since CO doesn't fly here. How soon should we be able to fly on UA? I hear some say not before the end of 2010.
You're right, at the very least. End of 2010. I fly to Philippines and I don't see UA flying in there. So no real boost from my angle there. Looks like same OAL from NRT to MNL.
A CO retiree living in BKK, one of my most favourite cities.....I'm a CO retiree living on the Gold Coast of Australia and get my ZED tkts issued by the GSA in SYD, who issues yours, the CO GSA in BKK??
I was in the Gold Coast at Surfers Paradise back in 1989. You're lucky to be living in that area. Very beautiful. How is retirement living down under these days? I flew down there on Qantas from GUM/Port Morseby/Sydney. I remember they quit the flights to Sydney in the mid 1990's sometime.
I wouldn't say it'll be that long right away necessarily. When I worked for NW in summer '08, they started a program where employees were allowed to fly on each other's flights for free before the merger was official. I don't remember when the NW/DL merger was announced, but I remember that this program started in early June, roughly. Granted, that's with totally different companies, but you never know if they'll copy the program.
Retirement here on the Gold Coast is fabulous, great weather, beaches and beautiful ladies!!
It was shame when CO quit SYD/BNE/MEL but they kept CNS (GUM-CNS-GUM), however now with the proposed merger CO is back in SYD/MEL....
Dynamite there Flassher. Gold Coast. Greatest fruit drinks and fresh fruits I've seen anywhere. The beer is not too bad. Drinking up the XXXX beer? Schoonah? Shooting up a game of snooker? I can't honestly say I recognize you. Hash house harriers? I remember them on SPN. We were on a ship that went to Iwo Jima's 50th anniversary and we had a guy that ran with the harriers, had him a t-shirt made with Hash house harriers with Iwo Jima flag raising. Only thing was nobody ran with that group but him. So nobody bought those shirts.
I ran a couple of times with the SPN hash...still cannot forget how much jungle there is on that tiny island (GUM also)!!!
If you ever head for Surfers again, let me know and I'll buy you a Schooner or three.....
I see you go to the Philippines a lot, my other favorourite destination. Love Sabang. Great hashing country as well, so if you are there anytime soon let me know and I'll take you on a hash run!!
Actually, I live in Pattaya I'm kind of glad, Bangkok is a little dangerous lately what with all the Red Shirt Protesters. Pattaya is very safe and great place to be retired.
Been to Pattaya many times and run with three different hashes there....Tahitian Queen is where we hang out mostly!!
I'm hoping it will all blow over before I arrive 16 June!!
Yeah, who knows when I'll make it back that way to Asia, usually every three years or so, just got back from PI last Jan. I was trying to go to SPN, been 10 years since I been there, miss alot of folks, maybe now alot of them are gone. The flights were too full out of MNL to SPN. Next time I'll be sure to make it. Surfers Paradise, I'd love to see again one day. Incidentally. Do you live at SURFERS PARADISE or close by on the Gold Coast? I remember the beer garden at Surfers P. I stayed in a hotel called at that time, the CHEVRON hotel. It was high season when I went and I was lucky to find a place. It was inexpensive too. I liked those AUSSIE DOGS they sold on the streets. Good ole meat pies. I liked it when I went to a bar, and they had some food included in happy hour. I drove to SP on the Pacific highway, and then on up to Sydney. Stayed at KANGAROO POINT and took the ferry across the river to QUEEN STREET. I'm talking 21 years ago. Closest I've gotten to being back down under was in Bali. A whole bunch of Aussies hangout over there drinkin up that BINGTANG beer. Have you been back since the bombings at Legian Street? Sometime if I ever go back to SP, I'll take you up on the Schooner. Thanks.
Just a little curious about United benefits. How do employee flight benefits work at United?
imon, UA's employee flights are free domestically in the back of the bus (coach) and there is a charge for first/business.
As an example, SFO to IAD in business is $38.08.
United employees earned a lot of "incentive" passes, which are a limited number of free flights. These can be used, say, for SFO-SYD in first, whereas employee first class on this route would cost $376 RT.
flassher and painai2, I sent you PMs regarding retiring abroad. Any info or insights is appreciated.
We get em free after 10 years of service. Including the service charge which co picks up. Example. IAH-BOS 00.00 fare. Hope it stays that way. BF is a different story.
I figure this thread could use a bump, eh? With the merger closing, things could get interesting pretty soon...
Oh, and I'm a little more well-versed in UA's policies and can find stuff out more easily now. Technically I'm only on UAX/SkyWest, but I can look up boarding priorities and such.
And from a source I heard that UA/CO travel benefits will be joining up pretty quick here as well. :)
I understand we can go UAL flights for 30 percent less than the going zed fare. And that UAL employees go before CAL employees on their planes but CAL employees will go before any other airliners and vice a versa. Until the final merger.
Continental Airlines reaches a tentative agreement for a new contract with the Teamsters
Continental Airlines (Houston) has announced that it has reached a tentative agreement on a new labor contract with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) representing Continental aircraft maintenance technicians and related employees. The IBT is expected to hold a ratification vote in the coming weeks.
Also, UA and CO stockholders have all agreed by 98% majority to endorse the merger....it sure looks like it's on......interesting times ahead.
From what I understood, the order is slightly different there. CAL gets on their own flights first, then UAL, then OAL. On UA flights, it's UAL/CAL/OAL. Just a small step up in the list, but sometimes every little bit helps.
Hopefully this will apply for UAX carriers like me, we haven't heard anything from our travel department yet...
Just talked to the main rep at the travel department while trying to get a listing on DL done. Unfortunately, he doesn't think we'll be seeing anything for quite a while, despite UA's upcoming agreement. Probably because we piggyback on DL's ZED agreements, not United's.