You can take this one as either good news or bad news: US Airways and United Airlines said yesterday they had agreed with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to extend the review period of their proposed merger until April 2.  Remember that the original date for a 'decision' was on January 16.

There are many ways to read into this time extension before the final decision is made regarding the US Airways purchase.  Notice how I didn't say 'US Airways merger'.  This is because I'm hitting home the point that it will be up to us (the flight attendants) to decide if United can merge the operations together.  Until then, US Airways (should this deal even be approved by the new date of April 2) must be kept and run as a separate airline.

Our MEC President Linda Farrow mentioned in her letter dated December 13, 2000:  "As long as the United Flight Attendants believe the negatives of this merger outweigh the positives, there will be no merger of the operations."  For more information regarding our power and ability to prevent the operational United/US Airways merger, contact your local AFA office.

On thing that I find interesting here is that the media reports indicate that US Airways and United both mentioned in separate press releases that they aren't offering any further concessions to alleviate the regulators' antitrust concerns.  See the GOA story for more details.  Now that could be taken as a positive sign if you don't want this purchase to proceed.