Travel Tips For Airline Mergers

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By the time you read this, two or more of the Big Six airlines may have announced a merger. Or a series of them. Or they may have jointly declared that they are combining into the Big Red One. Or they may have done nothing at all.

As the six traditional carriers—American, United, Delta, Continental, Northwest, and US Airways—enter a period of frenzied negotiations, there’s smoke, mirrors, sound, fury, bread, circuses, heat, light, and a torrent of conflicting and spectacularly ill-informed media analyses.

As I explained several columns ago, mergers are never good for airline customers and rarely work out for the airlines either. Having flown through two previous merger waves—the mid-1980s orgy when about a dozen deals were consummated, and the pre-9/11 mating season when just one notable combination was completed—I predict we’ll see confusion and service disruptions. But we business travelers can mitigate the pain—a little. Here are my hard-won tips for traveling in the time of merger.

Ignore Everything You Read and Hear
Airline mergers are the spectator sports of the business media, and everyone from the local beat reporter to the network news correspondent who just parachuted in has an angle or an ax to grind. They’ll all dig up quotable “experts” who haven’t gotten it right since the Wright brothers. Do yourself a favor and ignore all the bloviating. There isn’t a human being on the planet who knows what the industry will look like a month from now, so they certainly don’t have a clue about what we’ll be facing a year from now. And a year is probably the earliest that any merger announced now could actually take effect after the requisite Justice Department reviews, congressional hearings, and labor-management grandstanding.

Learn the Jargon
The folks who work at the airlines can’t afford to be as sanguine about the daily play-by-play. Their lives and livelihoods are seriously impacted by the fine points of any combinations, and they’ll be busy worrying about themselves, not you. To get the information you need to survive on the road, you’ll have to learn how to speak airline jargon.

One example: When you don’t see your plane at the gate, don’t ask the agent if the flight is on time. Ask, “Where’s the equipment?” That will force the agent to go to the computer and find out where your aircraft is and when it will actually arrive. If the plane is already at the gate, ask, “When are we scheduled to push back?” Looking for an upgrade? Don’t blindly inquire about your chances. Ask, “How are the loads today?” The agent will tell you how many seats are empty and your number on the upgrade wait list.

How do you learn the jargon? Listen to how airline employees talk to each other. Use it properly and employees will assume you know more than you really do—and they’ll respond with more information than they volunteer to average fliers.

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