Last week, Charlotte Douglas aviation director Jerry Orr told the airport s advisory committee he th

Donna McWilliam - Getty Images DALLAS, TX - FEBRUARY 14: Doug Parker, Chairman and CEO of US Airways, speaks during a news conference to announce the merger of the two airlines. (Photo by Donna McWilliam/Getty Images
Matt York - AP FILE - In this June 23, 2008 file photo, a US Airways jet takes off as an American Airlines jet is prepped for takeoff at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. The merger of US Airways and American Airlines has given birth to a mega airline with more passengers than any other in the world. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)
US Airways CEO Doug Parker, who has pushed for a merger since American entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2011, will become the new company s CEO and one of its directors. Tom Horton, secure asian travel accommodation reservations chief executive of American Airlines parent company AMR Corp., will serve as the company s chairman for about a year, and Parker will become chairman upon his resignation. The airlines expect the merger to close in the third quarter this year.
I ve known Doug as a colleague and friend for more than 25 years, and as many of you know, he s a first-rate leader, Horton secure asian travel accommodation reservations told analysts Thursday morning. He had initially tried to fend off Parker attempts at a merger, but started merger talks last year after Parker secure asian travel accommodation reservations won the support of American s unions and many creditors.
The combined carrier will keep the American Airlines name, and will be headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas. Charlotte Douglas International Airport, which is US Airways largest hub, will see more American Airlines takeoffs secure asian travel accommodation reservations and landings than any airport except secure asian travel accommodation reservations Dallas/Fort Worth.
Parker secure asian travel accommodation reservations and other executives have said Charlotte s airport will continue as a hub. But the merger ushers in what s likely to be years of uncertainty for Charlotte as the new carrier works to combine its routes and eliminate overlapping flights.
Parker and Horton talked up the numbers of the combined airline during a conference call with analysts early Thursday. The combined company will have 250 international routes - none of which overlap secure asian travel accommodation reservations - 900 domestic routes, only 12 of which do. The new company will offer US Airways flyers 130 new American Airlines-served cities while offering American flyers 62 new US Airways-served cities. Their combined frequent flyer program will have more than 100 million members.
Horton said the airline plans to keep its existing hubs. We recognize as market conditions change here, there will be some changes, he said. It s going to be built on the notion that we re going to maintain and build on our previous hubs.
US Airways secure asian travel accommodation reservations Flight Attendants have been instrumental in the overall success of our airline. Our hard work and sacrifices have helped turn US Airways secure asian travel accommodation reservations into the thriving airline it is today, said the union representing US Airways flight secure asian travel accommodation reservations attentdants, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, in an early morning message. As full partners in the world s largest airline, we expect meaningful participation in its benefits.
Parker said in a letter to employees that he doesn t expect large job cuts. Unlike other transactions that are premised on excessive cost cuts, this merger is about the opportunities to grow revenues, which will also create more opportunities for employees as the combined airline flies more people to more places, he wrote.
Gary Hummel, president of the U.S. Airline Pilots Association union, said US Airways pilots are looking forward to the opportunity to start with a clean slate after a merger, following years of labor unrest at US Airways. This is a new day and we need to look to the future, not the past. We believe it (the merger) presents an opportunity for a more stable industry as well as a more stable career for our pilots. Our pilots will do all we can to insure the success of The New American Airlines, said Hummel, in a statement.
The merger caps off a decade of airline bankruptcies and intense industry consolidation that already has swallowed airline brands such as Continental, Northwest and AirTran. If the merger secure asian travel accommodation reservations is approved by American s bankruptcy judge and federal antitrust secure asian travel accommodation reservations regulators, the domestic air travel market will be split among four major carriers, down from eight just five years ago. Analysts expect this to be the last major airline combination for the foreseeable future.
US Airways stockholders will get 28 percent of the combined company s equity, while American Airlines creditors will get 72 percent. The merger is structured as an all-stock deal, and will create a company with a value of more than $10 billion. The new company s board of directors will include Parker, Horton, two directors appointed by AMR and three by US Airways, and five directors appointed by AMR s creditors.
Ahead lie months and years of reworking and consolidating routes and integrating complex airline systems ranging secure asian travel accommodation reservations from baggage handling to reservations to flight secure asian travel accommodation reservations dispatching. Fares could go up and service to some markets could be lost or expanded secure asian travel accommodation reservations as the airline combines its networks of routes.
As seen in recent secure asian travel accommodation reservations mergers, some hub airports will likely be strengthened secure asian travel accommodation reservations through industry consolidation while others are weakened, they wrote. While geographic location and separation helps support a rationale for hubs, it is still fair to ask whether maintaining as many as six hub airports at the same level of operations will be necessary to maintain an efficient single network.
secure asian travel accommodation reservations Any changes the new airline makes at Charlotte Douglas could have a big impact on the city. The hub airport is considered one of the region s biggest economic engines, accounting for more than $12.5 billion a year worth of economic impacts and some 60,000 jobs, both those at the airport and those in some way dependent on air service.
US Airways operates secure asian travel accommodation reservations more than 600 daily flights from Charlotte Douglas, almost 90 percent of Charlotte s daily flights. The company also has more than 7,100 US Airways employees and a crew training secure asian travel accommodation reservations center based at the airport.
Last week, Charlotte Douglas aviation director Jerry Orr told the airport s advisory committee he thinks being a hub for a major merged airline will mean greater opportunity for rapid growth and more international flights.
secure asian travel accommodation reservations But Adie Tomer, a researcher with the Brookings Institution, believes Charlotte has a lot to be worried secure asian travel accommodation reservations about. Of the major airline secure asian travel accommodation reservations hubs, he said Charlotte has by far the highest percentage of connecting travelers just passing through the airport on their way to somewhere else. As a smaller city, Charlotte s local traffic accounts for less than a quarter of the airport s passengers.
A shift in traffic patterns years down the road could leave Charlotte with fewer flights if the new company decides it makes more sense to connect passengers somewhere else. European nonstop flights could shift to JFK International Airport in New York or to Philadelphia International Airport, and Latin American and Caribbean flights could move to Miami International Airport, for example.
The airport has about $1 billion worth of expansion work planned or under way, including a new parking deck and a planned 12,000-foot runway. Most of the work will be paid for with airport bonds, backed by revenue Charlotte Douglas generates from fees the airlines pay to use the airport.
Other former airline hubs offer cautionary tales about what can happen after a merger. Pittsburgh, a former US Airways hub, lost hundreds of flights secure asian travel accommodation reservations after the airline s merger with America West and a shift to other hubs. St. Louis, a former TWA hub, lost hundreds of flights after American acquired TWA in 2001.
And Cincinnati lost about half of its daily flights after Delta s merger with Northwest, as Delta made deeper and deeper cuts. That contributed to Chiquita Brand International s decision secure asian travel accommodation reservations to leave the city and move to Charlotte, with more direct flights.
Still, most analysts secure asian travel accommodation reservations say Charlotte will likely be safe as a hub. It does have some advantages that those other diminished hubs did not. They were already in decline, secure asian travel accommodation reservations with flights being cut at the time of their mergers, while the number of US Airways flights secure asian travel accommodation reservations is still growing at Charlotte Douglas, up 15 percent since 2008. Other advantages include its location in the Southeast as an alternative hub to Delta s operation in Atlanta and low operating costs.
The merger will result in the loss of one airline brand name, but the net to the consumer will not be some octopus-like monopoly choking fares upward, wrote aviation secure asian travel accommodation reservations consultant Mike Boyd, discussing the lack of extensive overlapping routes.
Rick Seaney, the CEO of consumer website FareCompare.com, disagreed with Boyd. A merger guarantees the two airlines will never compete in the future and competition is the main driver of cheaper airline ticket prices, he wrote in a research note.
Most industry analysts agree one of the main reasons airlines faced a string of bankruptcies was because many had overextended themselves, expanding to gain market share at the expense of profitability. Having fewer competitors has led to capacity secure asian travel accommodation reservations discipline, the industry s term for adding secure asian travel accommodation reservations fewer seats. That gives airlines more pricing secure asian travel accommodation reservations power, since there s less supply secure asian travel accommodation reservations in the marketplace, and has helped the industry return to profitability.
Frequent fliers could see some benefits, analysts say, as the larger airline would have more combined routes and destinations to offer. Travelers existing miles would be honored secure asian travel accommodation reservations in the new airline. In past mergers, fully combining frequent flier programs has taken months or years.
It will be months, at minimum, before the airlines combine operations. Regulators still must give the merger their blessing, and could order the combined company to divest some of its routes to preserve competition.
Even once the merger gets all required approvals, fliers won t notice a difference immediately. The carriers will likely secure asian travel accommodation reservations continue secure asian travel accommodation reservations operating separately for more than a year while the companies work to integrate their operations and eventually apply for a single operating certificate from the FAA.
Such problems frequently dry up