Originally Posted by
rickair7777
DOT has little to do with it, it's DOJ and FTC.
As to the political practicality of an airline merger...
1. Would it result in a merged entity significantly larger than DL or AA (this is a bit nebulous depending on whether you look at revenue or ASMs or even fleet count)?
2. Would it result in a significant monopoly at any big hub or regional market?
If the answer is no, it would likely pass muster with the current administration. #2 could be (and has been) addressed by divesting gates/slots to balance out competition.
Whether it makes business sense is of course a whole 'nother issue. But corporate leaders in general will assume that two smaller companies in the same business can generally achieve cost savings and efficiencies by merging.
I think AS could be acquired by SW, or merge with anyone smaller. I think they could be acquired by UA with west-coast divestitures (not saying that makes sense). Could maybe be acquired by DL, the merged entity would be bigger than AA but not that much bigger.
Just to play devil’s advocate for a moment; SW+AS would be significantly larger than any other carrier in terms of domestic US market share. Isn’t that the limit of jurisdiction for the DOJ anyways? Could DL/AA/UA make a complaint this would result in an anti-competitive environment and perhaps they would need to buy a domestic carrier to compete against SW/AS? Interesting to think of...