Over the past week, I keep thinking about a few things related to the US Government’s stance on the US Airways / American Airlines merger and, specifically, their cited concerns about the merger.  Here they are in no particular order:

• The DoJ was remarkably absent when the Wright Amendment undoing was being done.  Love Field Airport was essentially made a single airline airport . . . forever.
• American Airlines now controls the following terminals at DFW International Airport:  Terminal A, Terminal B, Terminal C and parts of Terminal D.  The remaining terminals available to other airlines are . . . Terminal E
• Delta . . . Atlanta . . . enough said.
• No one seems to be trying to preserve flights to and from small cities in other parts of the country but anyone who wants to remove silly flights into Reagan National is deemed a danger.
• Delta . . . Minneapolis . . . enough said.
• Delta . . . Detroit . . . enough said.
• United . . . Houston . . . stranglehold.
• Southwest . . . Love Field and Midway airports

By the mandate cited by the DoJ, the antitrust department would appear to have a strong duty to investigate and correct these defects as soon as possible.

Filed under: Airline Service, Airports, Deregulation, Mergers and Bankruptcy by ajax
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Delta Airlines has announced an order for some Airbus aircraft and before anyone signals that this is the end of days moment for Boeing . . . relax.

Delta today is comprised of Delta yesterday and Northwest Airlines of yesterday as well.  Northwest Airlines was a big user of Airbus aircraft.  The organization does have a great deal of experience operating Airbus aircraft now.

Furthermore, no airline of Delta’s size can afford to continue to buy from one single supplier and be responsible to both their company as well as their shareholders.

And who says Airbus builds a bad product?  I sure don’t.  Delta has learned that the A330 works very well for them sitting between their 777-200 and 747-400 aircraft.  Part of this order is a “top up” of the A330-300 type to the tune of 10 additional aircraft.  Delta has (10) Airbus A330-200s and (20) Airbus A330-300s already and an additional (10) A330-300 aircraft sounds, to me, like Airbus is growing some capacity at the top end of their fleet.

The A330-300 is their second largest aircraft seating-wise, believe it or not.

And Delta ordered (30) A321 aircraft as well.  This is an airplane that arguably most US based airlines will be buying as it has been identified as a 757 replacement on certain missions.  Given that just 30 of them have been ordered, I suspect that the A321 offers a better replacement than the 737-900ER  in certain missions likely requiring more density rather than range.

No airline can afford to skip Airbus at this point.  Likewise, no airline should skip Boeing either.  Each manufacturer has viable products that can meet needs.  Aircraft manufacturers can no longer offer delivery positions that make it possible to stay in one product family.  Well, not easily anyway.

Filed under: Airline Fleets, Airline News by ajax
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