The merger of Continental and United continues apace, with the US Justice Department not raising any objections or memos to the merger.
Of course, there was a small price to pay – the leasing of 18 slot pairs at Newark International to Southwest airlines
With clearance from the EU, the DoJ, only State Department and the Department of Transport have the final chances to stop the merger.
And both companies are positive they’ll say yes.
The big votes are due from both Continental and United are scheduled on 17 September, and aiming to complete the transactional merger by 1 October.
Then the hard slog begins to merge the carriers from the individual certificates to a single operating certificate from the US FAA by mid-2012.
Well, the short introductory dance will be over soon enough, and then the pain of merging two certificates into one, the union fun, schedule consolidation and crew cuts.
And maybe – just maybe – painting the fleet.
