|
|
 |
||||||
 |
Opinion An Independent Attitude City must watch those airline mergers It's been a long time — in the 1980s — since Continental Airlines flew "The Proud Bird With The Golden Tail."
And the skies for United Airlines have become more surly than friendly. Those are two of several carriers engaged in major merger talks with some other old-line, or legacy, airlines. Several media outlets reported over the past weekend that Delta Air Lines, a carrier with a proud southern heritage, is in talks with Northwest Airlines about a possible merger. At the same time, Continental is dating two partners — United and American Airlines. All this may seem like faraway machinations of big companies, but in li'l ol' Amarillo, the implications could be ominous. What about Amarillo? In the five years I've been in Amarillo and covering aviation as part of my reporting interests, Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport has lost two carriers. Last year, Great Lakes Airlines folded its tent in response to Southwest Airlines' decision to offer Amarillo-Denver service. Great Lakes, the plucky little carrier with one of the classiest and most accessible chief executives, had code shares with United and Frontier Airlines. In 2005, Delta Connection closed up shop. That leaves the city with three commercial carriers at its main airport: Continental Express, which feeds into the carrier's Houston InterContinental Airport hub; American Eagle, which feeds American at its Dallas-Fort Worth hub; and Southwest Airlines, which services its routes to the east through Dallas Love Field and to the west through either Albuquerque or Las Vegas. With the loss of United and Frontier connections through Denver, the only way to travel west on Continental and American is going east first, adding mileage, time and cost to travel. Airline implications The Delta-Northwest merger, if consummated, will have greater implications for Continental than for Amarillo. Continental has a variety of alliances with the Minneapolis-St. Paul-based Northwest. The shared ticket booking and mileage programs will, no doubt, undergo upheaval, but since neither carrier is present in this market, that won't matter. The situation with Continental is more uncertain. A merger with United has the potential to be more advantageous for Amarillo. It could restore a connection through Denver with United's wider route structure, although the routes served by both carriers would be consolidated. And, no bodies would be sacrificed in Amarillo. That may not be the case if the Continental-American merger comes to fruition. What happens to the regional jet service? What happens to American Eagle and Continental Express stations and their employees? Don't forget that the city threw a lot of money at American to bring in the regional jets. City should watch out That raises once again the question why the city and the Amarillo Economic Development Corp. made such an anemic response about a year ago when Frontier's Lynx Aviation subsidiary was seeking incentives from cities in the region to bring in modern turboprop service with a new, quiet and speedy Bombardier Q400. The AEDC just threw a packet of data at Frontier and let it go at that. About a year ago, Richard "Buzz" David, the AEDC executive director, said the tax-funded agency had not discussed incentives. "The greatest incentive the airport here offers is very reasonable cost of operations airlines don't find everywhere," he said. He continued by saying that Frontier hadn't given the city a sense of what incentives it wanted and until it did, there couldn't be serious conversations. But the other reason was this, according to David: "I think we would always be careful as we looked at that to make sure we don't do anything to jeopardize the current level of service we have from our other carriers. I think that's a real important point." This merger mania is happening when the city is undertaking a large construction project at the airport and is imposing another tax, called a facility fee, to help finance that construction. It may be time for the City Commission and the AEDC to take a deep breath and think about these possible changes in the airline industry. Amarillo needs good air service to grow and prosper and, if it is true, as the capitalist culture maintains, that competition makes for better products and service, the loss of a carrier isn't in the community's best interest. And that's the context in which the possible mergers should be evaluated. George Schwarz: Editor and publisher of the Amarillo Independent. george@amarilloindy.com E-mail
comments about this story Posted: February 21, 2008
|
|
