I've spent the last week thinking about whether I like the United + Continental merger. There are lots of articles in the press you can read (Ill share some below), but this post is more my thoughts on the deal.

Obviously understanding its impact cannot be done fully until we assess the success of the integration. But at least on paper, there are some positive things about this deal that just might make it a relatively good idea for at least United.

First off, let me share my general philosophy on airline mergers -- namely, they're pretty much always a bad idea. They sound good, appear sexy, but are tough as anything to pull off right and generally end up with a wholly mediocre airline. In many cases, however, that's a huge step up from a bankrupt or liquidated airline. And there lies the rationale -- mergers are an acceptable alternative to liquidation. In the case of US Airways and America West back in 2005 -- it was exactly that. US Airways was likely going to be sold off in parts if that merger didn't occur. The resulting carrier is mediocre and still struggling, but at least employees and shareholders have something!

The Delta + Northwest merger was not quite on the courtroom steps, which gave me considerable pause. The integration went very very well (likely the best yet) and as such, stakeholders have generally benefited. It's unclear what the long term implications of value creation are, but my skepticism on that deal is so far proving unfounded. In that case, we had Northwest, which was struggling mightily, and Delta,who was on more solid footing but also with an unclear future. In hindsight, it's hard to say what would have happened in this "great recession" had they remained independent carriers, but it's very possible that at least Northwest would have faced another bankruptcy or worse.

Now enter United. United was formerly the worlds largest airline before 2001 when American acquired TWA (which it did only because United tried to acquire US Airways, and turned into one of the worst acquisitions of all time). Since then, it's been leap-frogged by Delta also when it added Northwest. It has performed poorly through the 2000s with major struggles the last few years after emerging from bankruptcy. Glenn Tilton, CEO, has made it very clear he saw consolidation as the key to United's long-term prosperity, much to the chagrin of his employees, who thought perhaps he should focus on running an airline rather than looking for merger partners.

But for the past few years, United's condition was so bad nobody would bite. Not Continental, Tilton's preferred partner, nor US Airways (whose CEO Doug Parker has been equally as clamoring for a partner). But by 2010, United was in a much better cash position and running a much better operations. Perhaps the post-bankruptcy reforms finally kicked in and started turning them around? Perhaps Tilton had just found enough levers to put lipstick on the pig (forgive the reference)? Only time will tell on that, but suffice to say, United looking better with other airlines looking worse was enough to consummate a deal with partner target #1, even if he had to use negotiations with US Airways as a tool to get Continental back at the table in a serious way. So for United, this is a great deal, but for Continental, it's more of a question mark. They've had great success in the 2000s relative to the other carriers. They didn't see a need to merge, only a need to prevent United from merging with someone else. As such, the deal they get out of this is much more of a question mark.

So -- now that they're going to try and do this (and due to a lack of major market overlap, I can't imagine the DOJ saying no), here's my list on the good, the bad, and the ugly:

The Good