On May 3, Continental Airlines Chief Executive Officer Jeff Smisek, a guy known for driving around Houston at 130 miles per hour (page 19), boasted how he'd telephoned his counterpart at United Airlines, Glenn Tilton, to break up the potential marriage of United and US Airways. "I gave Glenn a call and told him I was a much prettier girl," Smisek told Bloomberg News.rnIt would be unsporting to deny Smisek, 55, his Broadway turn as Maria in West Side Story. Yet the reality of the airline industry is anything but pretty. The vital function of flying passengers for work and pleasure remains a terrible business, and the merger of Continental and United won't do much to solve the problem.
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