I think..and this is a bit of a "conspiracy" styled thought, but I think the whole DAL/US slot swap was a precursor for this thing and DAL may very well be in on all of it. US had to divest from the NYC market to get over the one huge anti-trust issue that might have stopped this merger. I also think that AMR mgt. was on board from the beginning despite the Red Herring comments they have made to the press about wanting to remain a sole carrier. DP will probably make those guys twice as rich as they already are by buying them out and the whole industry then wins with higher fares...

This is just my "conspiracy theory" but big corporations love to do this kind of stuff...