Originally Posted by
ThrustMonkey
No they won't. First of all you have to get over on the DOJ who has stated only LCC can bid for those gates. IF you can do that, then you have to convince the city its a better deal to award them to Delta over SWA or VX. The hubris displayed by Delta in this instance is something else.
Correct. The whole point of the DOJ denying the AA/US merger as-is and then approving it with concessions is to let LCCs/Majors get a level playing field if the country will only have 3 mega legacy carriers. What are the new numbers now for the 3 legacy carriers? That they now represent 80-85% of flying choices available to the public? The 3 legacies now have a huge market share all due to mergers approved by the government. Every legacy today has merged with one or more other legacy carriers. Anything the DOJ forces a legacy to give up in order to form a mega legacy carrier will go to a LCC carrier to simply balance things out and offer more consumer choices.