UNITED-CONTINENTAL UNION DEAL UNLIKELY TO BE SETTLED THIS YEAR

Although United and Continental merges in October last year, they will not be able to reach agreements with all of their unions by the end of this year as they had hoped. Jeff Smisek, CEO of United Continental Holdings said that although he had hoped to reach joint agreements with all of its representative work groups by year-end, now he says: “I don’t think we’ll reach that goal given the complexities of merging mature, long-standing contracts as well as factors outside of our control.”