[caption id="attachment_7513" align="alignleft" width="386" caption="Newark International Airport"]
[/caption]The Justice Department said that it had closed its review following a “thorough investigation” of the proposed merger. This was after Continental agreed to lease 18 pairs of takeoff and landing slots at Newark Liberty International Airport. They agreed to this in order to resolve competition concerns.
United and Continental announced the merger in May say that they now expect to complete it by October 1. This will happen after a shareholder vote on Spetember 17.
If the deal is completed, one entity, called United Continental Holding Inc., will become the world's largest airline, replacing Delta.
The entity will operate as separate airlines for a year until the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issues a single operating certificate.
At this point they will become fully a single entity/airline.
Some analysts had warned that the merger could raise antitrust concerns, particularly New York area analysts, where Continental has a hub in Newark, however, the government approved the deal in record time. This should wipe all those concerns away. After all, Continental did sacrifice 18 sets of takeoffs and landings at Newark to Southwest Airlines.
Only a few analysts expected regulators to oppose the merger, however, a lot of analysts were surprised that the process happened so fast. Most of them had expected it to take until at least the end of the year.
Continue reading about the merger on the next page.
This rapid victory for Continental is going to make Continental's chief, Jeffery A. Smisek. He is the one who will be running the merged company.
This is not the first time that a merger has come up, two years ago, United and Continental were close to merging, but Continental walked away before the deal was to be announced because of United's poor financial health. This time, it's “for real” and I'm sure that the single entity that is being created will do well.
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