Originally Posted by
Lighteningspeed
This mega merger will also streamline regionals, and fewer regionals will survive this trend. For example NWA-Delta merger will not need Comair, Mesaba, Compass, RAH, Skywest and Pinnacle. It will want to consolidate them down to few regional airlines completely owned and controlled by the NWA-Delta. Which one of the regionals will survive is anybody's guess. Same scenario for Delta-UAL merger.
I agree... I think the rj's will hurt the most in these mergers. All the talk is to reduce DOMESTIC capacity, and rj's are the main stay of the domestic fleets. Mainline (at any airline) is spread as thin as can be. Look at the AA-TWA merger, the AX carriers grew to reduce what the 9's, 80's and 717's were doing. I think you will see the major overlaps in a merger will be in the regional feed.