Rent a car in France

An agreement is expected to be announced at the beginning of next week between United Airlines and Continental Airlines, which will result in the creation of the world’s largest airline. The proposed merger would mean that Delta Airlines, currently the world’s largest airline in terms of traffic, would be relegated to second place.

The boards of both airlines are currently thrashing out the final details. It has already been decided that the merged company will be based in Chicago, and that United Airlines will be the brand which survives. Chairman and chief executive of Continental Airlines, Jeff Smisek, is the forerunner to become chief executive of the new airline and United’s chief executive, Glenn Tilton, is likely to be given the title of non-executive chairman for the next two years. After that, Smisnek will take on the role.

The two airlines were engaged in merger talks two years ago, but both had walked away from the table without a deal being struck. The merger negotiations resumed again earlier this month and a final deal is imminent.

There have been reports that earlier in the week the two airlines had a disagreement about the stock-for-stock merger. Continental Airlines was said to be unhappy with the ratio of shares it was going to receive from United.

The disagreement came about because United wanted to use the market price of shares after the merger deal had been announced, and Continental said that it wanted calculations to be made using the unaffected share prices from before the announcement.