Is she really going out with him? CO dates the old broad UA

I just don't know - maybe I am feeling nostalgic. Continental the "new" young Turk has agreed to date the Old Girl United.

Driven from the arms of Northwest by the wiles of Delta - Continental has been invited to join Star and is getting the Royal Family Treatment. However joining is not going to be allowed for quite some time.

So now we see the Alliance map being re-drawn. Non-US Airlines and Star (in particular LH and SQ) have been coveting a domestic base in New York the largest metro in the USA. Clearly the pull back by United from JFK left a void in the Star Alliance route structure. (Heck it shows how much UA cared - they even sold the JFK-LHR route and slots to DL).

The sickest airline of all in the Star Alliance (now that Varig is long gone from there) is now US Airways. So you can just hear Mr Parker singing that song.

But I have a hunch that this is not going to be smooth sailing. Remember that LH bought a large chunk of the now Neelemanless JetBlue.

I suspect that there is a lot of conflict and soul searching going on in route planners spreadsheets right now. And if for no other reason than there is now some really heavy duty anti-competitive influences at work - I think Mr Oberstar and Mr Minetta might want to think about opening an investigation into concentration in the airline marketplace.

For sure this is a story that is going to run for a long time. And it ain't over till the fat lady sings. So if the smooth headed Mr Joe Jackson would get up to the Mike and start singing... he may be there a while.

Cheers

Timothy