pilotpayne, you disregarded the fact that taking slots away form newAA in DCA may not increase competition, but may just reshuffle direct routes away from DCA to already served markets. I personally think its idiotic to limit direct air service to our capital city.

I don't see how you'd know what Parker did or should have done, but I would imagine he ran some kind of analysis and found litigation the more value advantageous method or moving this merger forward. newAA is a minority player in the DC market in terms of total number of flights and total number of seats. newAA is well within it's right to contest the DOJ and seek to preserve as much of it's operations as it can manage to retain. Parker must have a strong case for him to hardline the DOJ and risk a legal dispute.

Parker may just be playing poker and so far he seems to have a decent hand to play.