Hopefully they will force Delta to release at least 20 percent of the gates that the New Delta entity would hold. Hopefully Airtran will pick up most of these since Southwest will not be interested yet in the ATL market. Hopefully they will also force the Delta entity to release at least 20 percent of the PHL gates so they Southwest can operate more effectively there.
Hopefully, the stupid idea of USA to merge with DAL will go the way of the carrier pigeon.
I assume you mean the passenger pigeon?
Correct - passenger pigeon
Why not have it go through. It would free up some used planes for Southwest to buy (since Boeing can’t make enough -700s to keep up
with Southwest’s growth). Then Southwest can kick “New Delta”'s a**
up and down the East Coast.
Except that neither Delta nor US Airways has 737-700’s. Delta has -800’s, which SWA might like but I doubt they would want USA’s -400 or -300.
It’s also a little known fact that SWA has options on the -600.
USA has 38 active and another boatload in storage (Victorville?). Delta has 17 stored 737-300s. AWE has 20 -300s and 6 in storage.
But they are NOT the -700 that SWA is looking for.
I know that if the merger goes through, they will have to sell half of their slots for the Boston-New York-Washington hourly shuttles that both airlines currently operate. I think it’s Federal antitrust laws that dictate that, since these are the only 2 airlines competing for the service. Obviously, this would create a monopoly.
According to USA Today, Southwest is very much interested in the excess assets of the merger.
“Southwest CEO Gary Kelley adds: ‘Assets could include aircraft, gates at airports, slots at slot-controlled airports but this is all very preliminary and who knows what twists and turns the deal will take. We just want to have an opportunity to grow on the East Coast.’”