Originally Posted by rickair7777

Major (in industry usage) means sells their own tickets and flies at least narrowbodies. AS is obviously that.

Legacy means "did interstate flying before deregulation". AS is that too.

Just because they do a lot of flying in a certain region does not make them a "regional" airline per today's usage of the term.

What they are is a legacy major which resembles some of the other legacy majors... 30 years ago. What changed was most of the rest merged and expanded their area of emphasis to the entire world. AS didn't change that much. But safe money says they will need to merge eventually.

HA is a legacy too, they are more similar to AS than to the big three. They *might* be able to hang on standalone for the time being because of their unique geography and brand.