You can't tell the airlines without a scorecard anymore. Mergers, consolidations, bankruptcies, start-ups, alliances and code shares make the airline industry very confusing -- more so with each day's headlines. The US led the way, and Europe is recently followed.
In the US, airline consolidations go back a long way, but consolidation fever . The present Continental was forged from an agglomeration of old carriers such as the original Frontier, Eastern, People Express and New York Air. Merger fever, economies of scale, Wall Street paper moving and so on have essentially left us with United and its current partner, U.S. Airways (that long ago took over the old Mohawk and Allegheny and recently AmericaWest), Delta (including Northwest) and American (which absorbed TWA) -- plus fast-growing, customer-friendly Southwest that currently seems to be the smartest carrier in the American skies. Along the way, other legacy domestic carriers disappeared. Think Pan Am (which had previously absorbed National) and Braniff. And these are just the ones that came to mind.
Similar consolidations, mergers and takeovers have raked European flag carriers too, but there, things are dicier because national pride is emblazoned on fuselages that are hard for airlines to relinquish, even as they are in dire financial straits. A merger between Belgium's SABENA and the former Swissair imploded or exploded after the national airline of Switzerland not only had its own financial problems by mismanaged SABENA. Brussels Airlines rose from its ashes but is a shadow of its predecessor
Air France and KLM (above right) are part of the same Dutch-controlled operating group that also owns 25 percent of Alitalia. Lufthansa, Germany's airline, owns SWISS, which succeeded Swissair after that carrier's bankruptcy; is a large stakeholder in Brussels Airlines and could take it over completely by 2011; bought BMI, and has just announced their takeover of Austrian Airlines. I could make a tasteless joke about an Anchluss in the air, but let's pretend that I didn't. There's also talk that Lufthansa might buy or merge with SAS -- or something. Stay tuned.
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