Jack,

I've not heard much as to why the DOJ overlooked Southwest's acquisition of Air Tran and then filed an action seeking injunctive relief for consumers in the US Air / American deal.

Back when United was involved, it was my understanding United itself wanted to kill the deal and that they had openly shared US Air's plans to consolidate the Companies in a way that was going to be ugly for all involved. Maybe the DOJ simply updated their references with current quotes from the US Air management team, I dunno. American's team put out some really rosy scenarios for their stand alone growth model (with a bunch of airplane orders that surely triggered lobbyists ....)

US Air's management has a bad reputation in some parts of the industry. It isn't that they drive any harder a deal, they're just nasty about it. Business still gets done but bad head work and poor CRM among their executive ranks makes everything harder than it should be.

ALPA's or Anderson's probably got some inside scoop. It will be interesting to hear. At this point it looks like this is more than a divestiture issue.