The US Airways offer to merge with Delta gave armchair strategists a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. The possibility of a US Airways-Delta combination offers lots of "what if" scenarios to ponder. But the rest of us may have reason to be thankful for it, too, even if we're not armchair strategists.
History teaches us that big deals don't always go down as first envisioned. Proposals sometimes beget counterproposals. Bidding wars can change the stakes and the players. The cast of characters can include white knights, raiders, arbitrageurs -- all of which helps to explain why airline mergers often come in waves.
The financial markets have responded enthusiastically to this deal not merely because of the value it may bring to Delta and US Airways stakeholders but because it could be the opening move in just such a merger wave.
A wave of consolidation is, in the opinion of many analysts, long overdue for our airline industry. There is a growing consensus on Wall Street and in academia that there are too many airlines and that the industry needs to consolidate -- and not just in the U.S.
We are warming to that view. There isn't a U.S. airline flying today that we would want to erase. We revere them all. However, we no longer believe we can afford to keep them all.
Needless to say, the airlines are vital to our economy. And they are the heart, if no longer the brains, of the travel business. The airlines pump life into business travel, personal travel and the entire global tourism industry. Financially, we need them to be a whole lot healthier.
If the price for that financial stability is having fewer airlines, then maybe we should swallow hard and let the wave begin.
And even if this proposal proves not to be in the best interests of Delta and US Airways, even if it is eclipsed by other deals or other strategies, we should welcome it because it has turned the industry's attention to new possibilities, to new solutions that the airline industry could adopt, or must adopt, to get out of the rut that it's in.
And no thanks
Speaking of giving thanks, the entire world owes a debt of gratitude to the U.S. government, specifically the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, for creating a virtual living textbook on how not to implement and communicate a public policy.
We refer to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, the much-bungled attempt by the U.S. to require visitors and returning residents to show a passport when entering or re-entering the country.
Like football players lunging and tripping over themselves to pick up a bouncing fumble, our politicians and bureaucrats managed to obfuscate and delay this proposition so badly that Congress had to step in a few weeks ago and legislate the deadlines all over again.
That meant the law was to be effective Jan. 8 for air travelers entering the U.S. from Western Hemisphere points. The deadline for arrivals by land or sea was to be June 1, 2009, or sooner if certain criteria were met.
All of that, of course, assumed that the executive branch, after turning a deaf ear to industry complaints about unrealistic deadlines, could meet its own timetable and publish the final rule 60 days before Jan. 8.
Of course, it did not. Why are we not surprised?