Continental Airlines Case Study Essay

1. United Airlines is owned by the UAL Corporation and was incorporated on December 30, 1968. The actual company was formed may years before this actually in 1925 and was a private mail carrying service between Pasco, Washington, and Elko, Nevada, and from these humble beginnings they formed a were able to start a company that would come to be a global leader in the airline service. From the 1960’s to the 1980’s the company had 6 different presidents and started to expand and venture into different aspects of business other then airlines and were unable to have any success. These companies that they purchased were not a success and were later resold.

9. What is the Cost of Debt, before and after taxes? Using the interest rate for the largest debt…cannot use the weighted interest rate for the debt since it includes capital lease obligations with no stated rate and could not find in the notes to the financials. 5.4% After tax cost is .054 x (1-.36) = 3.5%

835-20-30-2   The amount of interest cost to be capitalized for qualifying assets is intended to be that portion of the interest cost incurred during the assets ' acquisition periods

He can buy it for $12,000 or lease it for $1800 per year for the next five years. He can get the funds for the lease, by borrowing at 8% from the schools line of credit. The grader has no salvage value and fits into the 25% CCA bracket. The tax rate is 33%. What is the NAL?

The third and final question from the case is how would the lease classification change under U.S. GAAP. The FASB codification that deals with leases is ASC 840. U.S. GAAP classifies leases as operating leases or capital leases and it has a section for sale-leaseback transactions as well. Under U.S. GAAP, the lease in this case would be classified as a capital lease. This is because ASC 840-10-25-29 says, “If at its inception a lease meets any of the four lease classification criteria in paragraph 840-10-25-1, the lease shall be classified by the lessee as a capital lease.” This lease meets two of those criterions. The lease term is equal to 75% of the economic life of the equipment (3 year lease term / 4 year economic life of equipment = .75 or 75%) and the present value of the minimum lease payments “equals or exceeds 90 percent of the excess of the fair value of the lease property to the lessor at lease inception over any related investment tax credit retained by the lessor and expected to be realized by the lessor” (ASC 840-10-25-1d). The present value of the minimum lease payments does in fact equal or exceed 90 percent of the fair value of the equipment ($248,690 / $265,000 = .94 or 94%). Under ASC 840-10-25-31, the lessee should use the implicit rate to calculate the present value of the lease payments because the lessee already

Commercial Capital Corporation is the leasing subsidiary of a major regional bank and offers a lease at 12.75 million per year for 4 years. The first payment is due upon delivery and installation. The rest of the payments are due each subsequent year at the beginning of the year. This cost includes the same service contract as what would have been obtained with purchase.

9. You want to purchase a business with the following cash flows. How much would you pay for this business today assuming you needed a 14% return to make this deal?

American airlines is a corporation that exhibits all of the characteristics of a firm in an industry where good tactical management is the key to success. This company and its regional airline partner American eagle serve almost 250 cities around the world and operate more than 3600 daily flights. Its goal is to provide safe, dependable and friendly air transportation along with related services, making a great effort to transform any experience into a positive one. All of the services that this company has and the image that they are trying to keep in every day activities make each day an inevitable challenge for its employees.

A2: Jack should recognize the $1.2 million as rental expense along with all the other lease payments ratably over the 10 years (lease term of the new agreement). It should initially be accounted for as prepaid lease payments and then be recognized as lease expense over the next 10 years as par. 840-10-35-4 states, “If at any time the lessee and lessor agree to change the provisions of the lease, other than by renewing the lease or extending its term, in a manner that would have resulted in a different classification of the lease under the lease classification criteria in paragraphs 840-10-25-1 and 840-10-25-42 had the changed terms been in effect at lease classification inception, the revised agreement shall be considered as a new agreement over its term, and the criteria in paragraphs 840-1025-1 and 840-10-25-42 shall be applied for purposes of classifying the new lease. Likewise, except when a guarantee or penalty is rendered inoperative as described in paragraphs 840-30-35-8 and 840-30-35-23, any action that extends the lease beyond the expiration of the existing lease term, such as the exercise of a lease renewal option other than those already included in the lease term, shall be considered as a new agreement, which shall be classified according to the guidance in section 840-10-25. Changes in estimates (for example, changes in estimates of the economic life or of

9. Assuming that Santa Corporation was required to capitalize its operating lease how would the company’s

Continental Airlines has been experiencing turbulent times in recent quarters and without material changes to the company’s operations it may have worse times ahead. Using the results from my regression analysis, as well as cost estimation, I have forecasted what Continental can expect for revenue, costs, and profit in 2009. Table 2 is shown below, which shows the financial summary of Continental Airlines, based on reduced flight capacity and the projections I have been provided with.

American Airlines (American) made four fundamental changes to its rates. First, it moved to a four-tier rate structure; American offered first-class rates and three tiers of coach: full-fare, 21-day advance purchase and 7-day advance purchase. Overall, it expected to reduce coach fares by 38% and first-class fares by 20% to 50%. Though full fare coach prices dropped by about 38%, advance-purchase fares dropped by 6% when compared to the advance purchase tickets already being offered. Through this fare structure, American also eliminated deep discount tickets. Second, American eliminated the negotiated discount contracts of many large

At the onset of the airline industry in the United States, major network airlines were the sole providers of air travel. This multifaceted industry was a difficult industry to break into as a consequence of “sophisticated customer segmentation, hub-and spoke models and costly information systems for reservations, fare wars and intense competition” (Thompson 2008). Shrinkage in airline ticket prices augmented the demand for airline travel. Many markets were simply deserted or over-looked by major network airlines; this is a region a fresh “second tier of service providers” could enter into. This endeavor proved to provide a consumer savings of billions per year. Thus in June of 1971, after a tumultuous battle with other Texas-based

5. How does the merger between Delta and Virgin Airlines impact the company as a whole? (Outside research required).

3.375(1 + r)-1 + 3.375 (1 + r)-2 + 3.375 (1 + r)-3 + ...…+ 3.375 (1 + r)-40+100(1 + r)-40 = 95.6