Burlington Air Express, the Irvine-based subsidiary of...

Burlington Air Express, the Irvine-based subsidiary of Pittson Co., said it will merge its sister company, WTC Air Freight, into Burlington in a consolidation that could save the two companies $15 million a year. WTC of Newport Beach was acquired by Connecticut-based Pittson in July in an all-stock deal valued at $58 million. When the deal was announced in March, WTC’s chief executive said the two air freight firms would be run as parallel companies and would not share administrative facilities or change their names. In June, however, Burlington and WTC formed a separate company, headquartered in Burlington’s offices in Irvine, to provide a combined senior management team for the two air freight operations. In the merger, all of the business systems of the two companies will be combined, including the sales, service, warehousing and record-keeping operations. The companies’ only comment on how employment will be affected by the merger was that attrition and internal restructuring should minimize “employee displacement.”