Airlines Don't Win in Mergers: Shame About the WSJ

We are nary three weeks into 2008, but The Business Press Maven is ready to declare an early front-runner for most misleading headline of the year. It comes from The Wall Street Journal and goes like this: "Mergers Benefit Airlines; Shame About the Fliers."

I agree with the latter portion of this headline. Airline mergers are tough on fliers. From shared frequent flier miles on, airlines are hard to bring in sync and fliers certainly suffer. But how does the first half of the headline make me feel? Well, if you'll permit the understatement, kind of like diving into a pool of stinging bugs.

They Just Don't Get Airline Mergers!

Listen carefully all you out there who are busily chasing rumors about Delta(DAL Quote), UAL(UAUA Quote), Northwest(NWA Quote), Continental(CAL Quote) and U.S. Airways(LCC Quote) merging, in some shape or form. And listen even more carefully if you ever might be tempted to invest in one of these combined companies post-merger, if there is a post-merger. Why? Because despite the excited coverage about how much the big airlines stand to benefit from merging, since deregulation a generation ago, the history of merged airlines has been overwhelmingly bad. ...