     |
This alliance could boost the sales of Delta Airline tickets."DELTA AIRLINE TICKETS"
Can't find what you need? Try a Google Web Search in the box below!
05-01-1998 UNITED, DELTA FORM ALLIANCE AIRLINES TO SHARE SYSTEMS THAT WOULD BOOST THEIR MARKET, INCREASE REVENUES United and Delta airlines unveiled an alliance that will extend the reach of the carriers and boost combined revenues by $600 million. The deal announced Thursday allows the two airlines to share passengers and reservations systems for Delta airline tickets via interchangeable tickets and frequent flier programs. For Denver passengers, the agreement known as a ``code-share'' means more destinations and greater frequency to major cities using tickets of either airline. Under the arrangement, a Denver traveler who wants to go to Athens, Ga., could book Delta airline tickets with United that switches him to a Delta commd earn United frequent flier miles for the entire trip. Likewise, a passenger in Atlanta would b efficiently through United's er hub and its Unite Express regional airlines. ``United will be able to add service totaly nonstop in 319 city pairs,'said United chief Executive Officer Gerald Greenwald. ``And this does not count extending the alliance internationally. ``We want to be able to say to people in Chicago or Denver, if you choose to fly where Delta airline tickets flies most frequently, you can do so seamlessly.'' United is the nation's biggest airline and Denver's dominant carrier with nearly 70 percent of the market. It is strongest in the Midwest and West Coast, with its largest U.S. hubs at Chicago O'Hare, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington Dulles. Can't find what you need? Try a Google Web Search in the box below!
United controls 97 percent of the connecting traffic in Denver, according to Paul Stephen Dempsey, a University of Denver transportation law professor and Frontier Airlines board member. Delta airline tickets have less than 5 percent of the Denver market. Its strengths are in the East and South. Its Atlanta hub is the largest single carrier hub operation in the world, with smaller hubs at Dallas / Fort Worth and Cincinnati. Delta, the nation's third-largest airline, also has a hub in Salt Lake City that competes with DIA. Together, the two carriers will control more than one of every three airline seats in the nation. Greenwald said United does not plan to cut back on flights where the two carriers overlap. Federal law prohibits the two carriers from sharing schedule, pricing or marketing strategies, he said. The Justice Department has said it will examine the wave of alliances announced recently for their effect on consumers. The United-Delta airline tickets deal follows a similar arrangement between American Airlines and US Airways. The first major alliance came when Northwest bought a controlling stake in Continental in what was dubbed a ``virtual merger.'' ``We're going to look at them from a narrow view, a broad view, a side view, any view it takes,'' said John Nannes, deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's antitrust division at a House subcommittee hearing Thursday. But Greenwald said the deal does not violate the antitrust laws, emphasizing, ``It is not a merger, it is not anti-competitive and it is not completed.'' Left on the sidelines of the consolidation efforts are struggling TWA and highly successful Southwest Airlines among the major carriers. Executives at upstarts such as Frontier expressed amazement that the major carriers increasingly cooperate while small rivals in their fortress hubs complain of predatory behavior. Dempsey called the alliance ``an extremely arrogant decision on the part of the majors to pour kerosene on the burning competition issue.'' The alliance will allow Delta airline tickets and United airline tickets to monopolize connecting traffic and will make discount carriers such as Frontier more invisible in travel agents' reservations systems, he said. More than 85 percent of airline tickets are booked on the first page of computer reservations systems listings, he said, but Frontier's flights do not appear, in some cases, until the third page. The combined frequent flier program will become even more irresistible than the independent offerings, further diverting traffic from the discount airlines, he said. Larry Cunningham, an airline marketing specialist at the University of Colorado at Denver, said United and Delta ``are gleefully indulging in defensive alliances which will reduce competition, raise prices and fatten the bottom line. What's good for the airline industry is no longer beneficial for the consumer.'' Can't find what you need? Try a Google Web Search in the box below!
The airlines deny that the deal will allow them to increase fares jointly. The deal still needs approval by pilots' unions at both airlines. Last minute demands by Delta's pilots caused postponement of the alliance announcement last Friday..... Find Delta Airline tickets and compare here /cheap airfares home |