The official announcement of the marriage of American Airlines and US Airways came on the perfect day of love, Valentine’s Day. This partnership has had lots of media coverage, and business travelers have been waiting for the final news for months now. Looking at travel websites and bloggers, it’s hard to say if travelers are happy or a bit disturbed by the news. American Airlines will now become the biggest domestic airline in the United States.

As an AA Advantage member, I think this is a good partnership. I have been a member for only a couple of years, but I end up using different carriers like US Airways because they have more flights out of Los Angeles or Burbank. I now have a bigger network going to Philadelphia, Arizona, Washington and more with over 6,000 flights. The downside is the merging of two well-known carriers with reputations of bad customer service, flight delays and baggage fees. Once consolidated, the new American Airlines has to put together some major PR efforts and retraining of gate agents/flight attendants to overcome their stigma. The new livery of the AA aircrafts is a start, and I am interested to see what happens in late 2013. 

How do you feel about the merger of American Airlines and US Airways?

— Carly Allen, vice president