Originally Posted by
Flyby1206
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...
No, depending on how you measure "size" (fleet? Pax? ASMs?) SW + AS would be in the ballpark of AA and DL, perhaps still smaller than both.
Even if it were the largest somehow, that's still not a show stopper as long as they are not significantly larger than any other competitor, and does not create market monopoly. West coast is the only issue, AS and SW have no hub overlap. IIRC SW presence is relatively small at all AS hubs.
That's just the DOJ sniff test, not speculating on the business case although they have large fleet commonality. And the bus's IIRC come off lease soon.