No. USAir has an enormous base and operation in the United States. And it really would make no sense, or certainly very little sense, to contemplate replacing that work with foreign labor. Apart from anything else, USAir is going to control its own destiny. We don’t control USAir. OK, we may have 44 percent of the equity, but we’ll have 21 percent of the votes.
Yes. For $750 million I think you would expect to have some influence!
We are impressed with the measures that they are already taking and that are already underway. Secondly, we have identified the synergies to be derived not only from the revenue side but also on the costs side. Then on the engineering and maintenance side, quite clearly we’ve got a lot of commonality in equipment operated by the two companies … I think we see it more in that context than in arriving on the scene with any preconceived dramatic or drastic ideas. We don’t have those.
I would think that that is extremely unlikely. .
That really has to be the biggest joke of all. By God! We are one of Boeing’s biggest customers on the world scene, and USAir is also one of their biggest customers.
Over time–and it may be the middle of the first decade of the next century–we will have open skies for the airline industry. And there will, in the end, be relatively few-maybe eventually only half a dozen–airlines that will have come about through alliances or partnerships, in due course leading, no doubt, to mergers and takeovers when the rules and regulations permit such.
If you look at every other substantial industry in the world you will find very rarely more than half a dozen truly global competitors in each of those industries. I do believe that the airline industry, once it is freed from all the shackles that encircle it at the present time, is going to formulate itself along the lines of almost every other industry. Clearly there will be some regulation that will remain. One would encourage that in terms of safety and security.
