Failing US Airline Market Reaches Out to UK For Help

In the United States, the airline market has seen its shares of downs this year. With many airlines going out of business and thousands of flights grounded, the United States airline market has decided to induce an allegiance between the UK based airlines and the US based airline in an effort to make airline travel more accommodating for all.

The ‘open skies’ merger would allow for US based flights to enter and exit from UK airports and UK based flights to enter and exit from US based airports on free basis. In the past when such a merger was proposed, the talks were ceased due to troubles with anti-trust laws. British Airways, to be exact, did not want to give up prime slots at London’s Heathrow Airport and thus backed out of the talks before a merger could be finalized. Many analysts question the helpfulness of the merger.

These talks are not uncommon as a recent merger between Air France and Delta Airlines has recently been entered into allowing both airlines to share the costs and the revenues created from transatlantic flights. There is no word as to whether the current talks between British Airways, Continental and American would follow these same guidelines.

Recent financial struggles in the United States have not seemed to effect the stocks held by UK based airlines with many of the airlines posting gains on the stock market this week alone. There is no doubt that financial struggles all over the world are affecting travel plans and this merger may be a step in the direction of simply trying to save money to keep flights in the air between the US and the UK.

www.britishairways.com