American Airlines and US Airways announced that they'll be merging to create the World's largest airline. While that may sound impressive, the merger might not be a good thing. Recent airline mergers have shown that passengers do not benefit from the change.
Based on the Airline Quality Rating, US Airways has ranked higher than American Airlines for the past three years.
According to Dr. Brent Bowen of Purdue University and Dr. Dean Headley of Wichita State University, a merger may jeopardize industry performance as it could take years for two airlines to combine their systems and culture successfully.
Dr. Bowen says the merger between American Airlines and US Airways means that passengers will have poorer service. He noted that every merger over the past 25 years resulted in the two airlines declining as far as performance goes. Late flights, lost luggage and reducsed customer satisfaction increased after the merger.
"There will be no benefits to performance and consumers will not see better quality," Bowen said in a media release. "Employees of both airlines will be unhappy and destabilized for an extended period."
Even though US Airways has ranked higher than American Airlines over the past five years, the smaller airline will not be able to boost the performance of the larger airline as two different business models and technology systems will clash, according to Bowen.
American Airlines placed 9th overall on the AQR in 2008 and their performance has dropped steadily, while US Airways showed improvements.
After United and Continental merged, the Department of Transportation noticed an increase in customer complaints and lost luggage. Headley believed the merger was the issue.
"Anytime you have two airlines trying to combine, one of those airlines is going to have a period of decline," Headley said in a release.
In addition to affecting passengers, a merger can also negatively impact employees. Employees may have concerns about layoffs, salaries, seniority and pension plans. These worries could also impact that ways employees carry out customer service.
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