What would be the gain in that? USAir's Europe presence is paultry compared to ours and most of our competitors. Maybe the terms on the planes are favorable? But is that enough to go through the mess of a fragmentation and partial merger with the most senior pilot group in the world?

Even if the terms on the 330's were good, are they really better than what we could get with an AAesque massive jet order like we're likely going to place one way or the other anyway? I could see if we needed the lift now, especially to EU, but we clearly are dumping as much as we can as fast as we can. So dumping our own capacity only to pick up theirs makes little sense other than as a crafty way to reduce total seat counts and drive up demand. But if we do that, UCAL, AA and a ton of subsidized foreign airlines will pick up the slack pretty quickly.

So what's in it for us?