Originally Posted by rickair7777

AA is too big.

UAL is not happening, too much overlap on the west coast.

Not too big for DAL. AA is significantly larger than DAL, adding AS to DAL would not displace AA from #1.

A DAL acquisition would require some concessions to the trust busters. Whether it makes sense to DAL depends on how bad they would want gates and planes (and maybe pilots), and whether they think they can simply crush AS without buying them... risk there is they don't control who would get the gates (and planes). Airports have egalitarian ideas about enabling small competition, so if AS left, the gates might go to some random startup or pesky ULCC.

Concur that JB and HAL are probably the best fits for a coordinated merger. DAL would just buy AS if they thought it would benefit them.