UnitedContinental Holdings (how long before the Continental part turns to dust?) has already started meeting my expectations by demonstration some outstanding financial performance numbers – three times better than is Delta, who has had over two additional years to reap what they have sown.

Check this out - One Reason the Street Should Love UnitedContinental earnings

Otherwise, it’s business as usual over there – charge more, deliver less. And, I’m going to hedge my bets on UA ordering 748i going forward – I’m now leaning more toward 773M for them.

I keep reading in forums and in the mainstream media that United Airlines “bought” Continental Airlines.

It’s not what happened at all.

United and Continental agreed to merge. A merger is a combination of two companies into a single enterprise.

A purchase is a purchase.

When United and Continental agreed to merge, they created a new corporation (UnitedContinental Holdings, Inc.) which issued new shares. These shares were traded for all of the outstanding and existing stock that each of United and Continental had. No United stock is left. No Continental stock is left.

Delta and Northwest recently combined. Delta, without changing its corporate structure, issued new shares and exchanged those for Northwest stock. Northwest, and all of its corporations ceased to exist entirely, and only Delta was the surviving entity.

That the trade name United is being used in the United Continental tie-up is the surviving name does not make it a purchase.

I have a few prognostications that I have pulled from the vapor of various stories and threads I’ve been reading.

To make it an easier read, I’ll just do one a day.

To start, I’ll do my (former) hometown airline, UCon (now NuCon, or United as it is more commonly known).

United (combined) has already begun to re-gauge several routes and their two east coast hubs – EWR and IAD. A whole lot of big legacy UA metal is moving up to EWR and a whole bunch of CO’s snappy little 75M are going to be hauling the political worker bees across the pond on legacy UA’s routes from IAD.

This makes a whale of a lot of sense.

Rumor has it that a few of legacy UA’s 744s are going to be running from IAH – NRT, FRA, LIM, LHR – the demand is there, and UCon hasn’t had the metal to upgauge.

United is making a push at NRT and flogging the regulatory authorities hard on Tokyo Haneda, now that Delta has drawn down service there.

Here comes my prediction – United is going to be a money machine. They will have the ONLY truly global airline – something that eluded even Pan Am in their heyday. Delta has very little to Latin America, in which United is immensely strong. United’s partnership with Lufthansa’s constellation of carriers will produce enormous revenue generation, as will Lufty and United’s transpacific agreements with ANA. This is basically a kick in the groin to JAL, who is already on the ropes.

The new United, as my buddy Gailen David today noted, seems to be choosing most of legacy Continental’s operating standards going forward – which is a very good thing. With an advancing reputation for service, the right ship on the right route, and the sole opportunity for a traveler anywhere to stay online everywhere – United is going to be the next King of the Jungle.

Yesterday, Air China bought five (5) Boeing 747-8i Intercontinental aircraft (apparently, as a “free gift with purchase” or something). They join Lufthansa and Korean Air in voting with their checkbooks for Boeing’s totally redesigned 747.

For years, the A380 has been held up as the new “Queen of the Skies”, but is it really? A380 sales have fallen off of a cliff in the last few years. In the last few months, cancellations have far exceeded orders.

More importantly, nearly half of the outstanding A380 orders are from one airline – Emirates. While Emirates seems to be moving from strength to strength, it remains to be seen whether they will actually take up this massive order along with the dozens of additional 777s and A350s for which they have spoken. This is a lot of egg in one basket for the A380 program.

The other day, a QFA380 had to make an unscheduled stop in Adelaide on its trip from Singapore to Melbourne. Ran out of gas. Headwinds. Of the 450 seats about, only 239 had found buyers.

This is the same circumstance that made the original 747 such a money loser. It’s just too damned big for most routes.

Right now, the A380 (which was delayed into production by nearly four years has had 234 firm orders of which 46 have been delivered. That’s 46 deliveries in four years. Boeing drops more 737s off the flatcars in a year than that.

Of those 234 orders, 90 are from Emirates.

The 747-8, which just had its first flights a few weeks ago, has garnered only a handful of buyers, although the freight version has a larger take-up.

The 747-8 has a fair amount of commonality with the 747-400, of which 664 are flying today. Most are approaching twenty years of service, but the 747 airframe has proven itself to be a very high-time performer. TWA operated some 747s to nearly 100,000 cycles, which far exceeds any other airframe’s performance.

The 747-8, in other words, will require fewer accommodations to fly. With the complete redesign of the wing (the most expensive and hard to engineer part of any airframe), new engines based on GEnx technology from GE, LED lighting, higher capacity electronics (meaning lower electric consumption) this ship should be able to operate at significantly lower cost per seat mile over a longer range than the 747-400 it replaces. 51 one more passengers, 26% more cargo volume, ability to operate into any current 747 airport, commonality as to tooling, some parts, some maintenance and a great deal of it as to crews.

So far, Boeing has brought in 76 total orders for the 747-8 (F and i versions together). That’s since project launch in 2005. The A380 had a five year head start, and if one backs out the Emirates order, they’ve sold 145 ships.

There are several very good articles out there regarding the advantages each of the A380 and 747-8i have over the other. From the pilot’s perspective, the 747-8i has a much more powerful thrust to weight ratio than the A380. The A380 has a maximum range of 15,000nm to the 747-8i’s 14,800nm – the A380 appears to have a lower fuel burn per seat mile, BUT -

If you can’t fill it up, what good does dragging empty seats at lower cost do for you?