Fact-checking the Continental Airlines-United Airlines merger

In their push to become the biggest airline on the planet, Continental Airlines and United Airlines wasted no time posting a merger website this morning. Maybe they should have considered hiring an editor before they did.

Now, I realize that no one is accurate 100 percent of the time, and that I’ve had my fair share of corrections. Feel free to let loose with the people-who-live-in-glass-houses-shouldn’t-throw-stones comments.

Then again, I’m not at the top of the airline food chain, either.

Take the great state of Delaware, for example. The merged airline claims to have a total of 55 daily departures from the first state. Oh, really?

No, not really. The new airline will only serve two nearby airports, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Delaware itself will remain free of the new United.

Seems like a stretch, don’t you think?

In fact, the merger site is littered with inaccuracies. It shows a nonstop flight from Frankfurt to Los Angeles. But neither United nor Continental offer a nonstop to LAX. Ditto for Providence-San Francisco. You have to make connections in Chicago and Newark, respectively.

If they can’t even get this right, it makes you wonder what else they’re going to screw up.

The answer comes to us from Jerry Clavner, a longtime reader of this site, who sent me his thoughts on the merger this afternoon:

They already charge us for the food, our bags, extra for our seats if we are fat, and soon to use the loo.

They route planes that are supposed to go west to some place back east to pick up three more passengers. There is less room for our legs than for cattle on the way to feedlots. You cannot stand up and if you need to use the facility, the air marshal gives you the dead eye.

Continental and United lose more baggage than a tot at Disneyworld. Their staff does not or cannot tell you anything about delays on either departures or arrivals. They clean their craft with leaf blowers and deodorants sprays. A piece of equipment without an electrical problem was probably borrowed from North Korean Air.

So what if they merge?

I hope Jerry’s wrong. I think Jerry hopes he’s wrong, too. I hope the errors get fixed and that this merger works for the airline, its employees and customers.

Who am I kidding?

  • BucksterSF

    I really don’t see what the fuss is about – 99% of the flying public does so based on price. This could potentially lower prices. The public gets what they want.

    Service will indeed probably suffer, but who seriously has not booked a flight on an airline because of service? If they did there wouldn’t be all of these extra charges and shrinking leg room now would there?

  • frostysnowman

    My thoughts are:
    Fewer airlines = less competition = higher prices (sooner than later)
    Except that we were supposed to get lower airfares when the airlines “unbundled” their fares. So in the end, I think the consumer loses again and the people who benefit the most are the airline executives and the lawyers and bankers who thought this merger and others was a good idea.

  • Carver

    @bucksterSF

    More likely it will raise prices as well have less competition.

  • http://rjtalestold.blogspot.com/ Dick Jordan

    Loved Jerry’s comments (especially the “leafblower” one) although I have to say I have never had any serious problems flying on United and have yet to take a flight on Continental. Time will tell whether this merger is a benefit or detriment to passengers. Remember you could be flying on “Choice Air” (see this from WorldHum: http://bit.ly/clNV4n).

  • Steve

    That site is indeed “littered with inaccuracies.” Their community map for Wisconsin, for instance, doesn’t mention Madison at all despite the fact that *both* United and Continental currently operate there (and the sidebar indicates that they intend to continue serving six airports in WI, which would mean that service to Madison will continue). Also, this is totally nitpicky, but their little pushpin for Wausau is at least a hundred miles northeast of where Wausau actually is (and in fact “Wausau” is actually the Central Wisconsin Airport in Mosinee, which is even further south than Wausau itself). I imagine there are plenty of other errors readily apparent to people familiar with airline service in their home states.

  • Jake

    @BucksterSF

    My wife and I avoid Delta like the plague due to poor service we received on a Northwest flight several years ago.

  • Brian C

    Those of us in Cleveland, the smallest hub in this new system, are worried about what it will do to our beloved airport. I love having direct flights to most major cities in the country while being able to get from downtown to gate in 40 minutes.

    However, we also lack the disadvantages that keep the big hubs from expanding: our airspace is relatively clear, we have plenty of room to expand, and there are virtually no tarmac delays.

    I fear that this merger sounds the death knell not only for Cleveland Hopkins as a hub, but also of the customer service that I have come to appreciate from Continental.

    I don’t fault the website designers for any factual errors. At most they had a few months to come up with a website for something as complicated as the world’s largest airline, and even as recently as a 2 weeks ago, it looked like things might stall. I can sympathize with a lack of fervor in double checking data for a gigantic project which may or may not see the light of day.

  • dns

    Great. Higher levels of service at Continental to be replaced by higher levels of no service at United.

  • Brian A.

    @Brian C – Look 250 miles south to Cincinnati to see what will happen to your hub. It’s a damn shame because Continental is the better of the two airlines (at least in service and giving a rat’s ass about the customer).

    Both Cleveland and Cincinnati have ample capacity, airspace, and no congestion problems. CVG just opened a new security area designed to handle hub traffic – but now is underutilized. Sure, you’ll get the promises from Continental that “Cleveland will always be one of our hubs” but they will slowly shave flights away over the next 12-18 mos. after the merger is approved, using whatever economic excuse of the moment they can (bad economy, fuel prices, landing fees, whatever…). It happened to STL, PIT, and CVG – face it, the airlines desire very large metropolitan areas with the highest amount of local origination traffic. CVG and CLE are both outside of the top 20. In absence of that factor, strategic location is next on the list (that’s why SLC will continue to be a hub).

    One can only hope that the former hub cities get direct service restored by other airlines with compatible business models and/or legal agreements (i.e. open skies).

  • Doug

    Due respect, if this Delaware bit is the most egregious problem someone could find, then the site passes muster by me. The rest of the Delaware block makes pretty clear that the reference is to the “Delaware area”–PHL and BWI are where Delaware residents fly from, since Delaware has no commercial airports.

    Likewise–and speaking of fact checking–the merger site doesn’t claim a nonstop from Frankfurt to LAX, it claims a direct flight, with United 944 is. We can take issue with how the industry defines direct, but direct is all the merger site claims.

  • MekhongKurt

    Brian C’s last paragraph made me really pause and reflect, especially since I’ve done a handful of [very simple] websites for other people. It took a surprising amount of work to get everything exactly right even for websites of a single-outlet restaurant-bar (for example). Even were I an expert web designer and creator, I would pause before taking on the assignment to make a new website for the upcoming world’s largest airline.

    Still, the sheer number of errors reported both in this article and mentioned by other posters here in the Comments section *is* disturbing.

  • co777capt

    This is a real Coup for the Pilots and Unions. What happens when the employees are dissatisfied with pay? Strike! If it drags out, one airline will shut down the entire air transport system. Smart, real smart.

  • Jeff

    Less competition = Higher airlfares! DL and NW merged, Midwest and Frontier merged, now this one pending. No matter how they slice it, fares will go up after the merger (if it goes through), with less competition in the air. Merger costs will be enormous (regardless of the fact it’s a stock deal) as fleets are standardized, rebranding all over the system, older planes are parked in the desert, and merging the IT systems, frequent-flyer plans and facilities will be expensive. Who do you think will pay for that? And importantly, how many jobs will be lost in this merger?
    Duplication on some routes will mean some flights are gone, so more travelers will be looking at less seats, and higher fares for those seats still available. As older planes are parked and duplicated routes reduced, the merged FF plans will mean more elites trying to get upgrades to fewer seats up front, and less reward seats available for everyone.
    I prefer flying CO, after having good flights on CO in recent years, with good ground and inflight staff and a newer fleet then UA. Personally, I’d prefer that CO and UA stay as seperate entities, and remain partners in Star Alliance with codeshare capabilities for booking flights and rewards.

  • Bill

    The other day, I got on United in Calgary, Canada. It was windy and blowing. They de-iced the plane and we took off safely; We then flew to Denver. Two of the four runways were closed and we had to circle then land in the wind. We did so – safely. I then got on a United plane for Orlando, from the same windy Denver airport that had two runways closed. We left the gate on time, but took off a half hour late -still arriving in Orlando on time. Orlando had a thunderstorm or so before landing. We got where we were going on time and safely. Our checked bag made it in a timely manner.

    Three airports with varying problems….we made it just fine. Doesn’t sound so screwed up to me.

    Oh, and get this…there were kids on the plane to Orlando – and they were fairly well behaved. The parents actually did their jobs and obviously had been doing them before the flight too.

    The fares need to go up because the airlines are losing money. Get used to the idea. Oh, I did pay a few bucks for the United Plus on the first flight. It was worth it! Also paid for the meals on the second flight, it was no big deal.

  • http://inthenewsquiz.com Cram

    Airline mergers have intensified since the deregulation in 1978.Nice trivia at inthenewsquiz website.

    http://www.inthenewsquiz.com/2010/05/trivia-behind-airline-mergers.html

  • Audrey

    I do not think Continental clean their aircraft with leaf blowers and deodorant sprays. If I remember correctly, they use industrial strength cleaners which must be handled with care and disposed of carefully. I have always enjoyed flying with Continental. The flight attendants were friendly and professional. I agree that the charges for food, bags, and extra space is unfair but what do you expect when consumer spending dropped so dramatically? Ever since 9/11 everyone has been afraid of flying. The fear tactic or “alarmism” has created a negative image on flying. I hope that this merger will save the airlines from more losses. And I hope that they will re-organize to become more efficient and to also continue to serve its consumers the way it was originally meant to be: affordable, comfortable, and always accessible.

  • Guam flyer

    I live in Guam where continental is the only game in town. I am friends with many of their employees and have a positive bias. That said they provide excellent service and their Onepass program is great. With flights and credit card points I am able to book a couple reward flights. My concern is that the level of service will drop. Continental’s reputation is better than United and I fear that the level of service will be more like United than what we’re used to with Continental.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/PGTC2ABTKY7HNEQNKAZCE6DTYI Chubit

    Captain Wendy Morse, of the United Airline Pilot’s Association, said, “It has to be one set of procedures, so it’s a lot of learning, a lot of retraining, and that retraining requires a very robust training program to make sure it becomes innate.”

    The United pilots union says it worries the new, merged airline is relying too much on Internet-based learning — and not enough on time in flight simulators.