You are totally wrong.
Continental took over basically all executive positions.
Center of operations not Chicago or Denver but rather Houston and Newark.
Seattle and Portland strongholds killed; as if anyone in their right mind would choose to travel from the NW to the East Coast via Houston.
Internally, System Air Maintenance renamed ‘Technical Operations”, how cool is that? Mechanics are no longer mechanics but rather ‘technical ops’.
Livery, uniforms (which are exactly Continental, right up to the South American dictator stripes on pilots uniforms) and so many other things you have no clue about; the only thing about UnitedAirlines now is the name on the side which they continued to fool the public.
You are wrong. The HQ was moved to Chicago to get Obamalini to approve the merger. The initial arrangement was a kind of joint leadership at the top with Continental’s Jeff Smisek as CEO. But United was in control because Continental merged INTO United, and the board was and is majority United. Smisek was subsequently replaced by Oscar Munoz, a member of the United board. Moreover, if you were to talk to Continental pilots you’d know that for years United employees resented and harassed Continental employees, partly because of Continental’s role in reshaping the airline industry under Frank Lorenzo ending the New Dew fascist style airline cartel that made legacy airlines like United economically unviable without changes to promote efficiency, and partly because many Continental employees were paid more until the last union contract negotiation. There’s more, but the bottom line is that United controls the board, and the culture is now completely United. Fly United if you like, but everyone in the financial community knows what a cluster-whatever United is.
I had Chicago based co-workers that were frequent and loyal United flyers. I never was as I had some bad experiences where the airline additionally treated me poorly.
The last twenty years of business travel, I was very satisfied with SW.
As I am from Kansas City, my “home town” airline, TWA, is long gutted by Icahn and then digested and crapped out by American.