Mergers in Action - All Systems Go for United?

A fabulous example of some of the challenges and potential problems that arise when a merger of two substantial, similar businesses is finally completed…

This short news clip highlights the nature of the change facing management and employees working to merge United Airlines and Continental Airlines as the final stage of the merger - a transfer of booking systems - took place.

How did it go?

Perhaps inevitably there were a few glitches. This article from CNBC tells the story - although on balance the systems changeover doesn’t seem to have been too disastrous given the highly complex nature of the task.

This report from the Economist Gulliver blog is less generous about the changeover. However, I suspect that the proof of the pudding will be how well the merged airline’s systems are working in several weeks time.