Originally Posted by
slammer1906
DAL downsized after their merger...Freedom Airlines, CHQ, Comair, pncl.
True, they are several hundred pilots down from 2008's numbers but, domestic capacity cuts usually hit the regionals harder. AA/US will be no different.
But in comparison to the other airlines AA had by far the smallest feed, in terms of airplane size and overall seats. AA also had shrunk considerably. And after many of the mergers we saw the all Legacy carriers shrink capacity. US and AA both have well over 80% load factors and they have dumped most of the unprofitable routes. With the combined network they will likely have some adjustments that will leads to larger airframes on certain routes and decreased number of airframes but they won't be decreasing capacity much. Most flights are oversold these days, any more capacity that is decreased will be handed to the competition.