Originally Posted by
acecrackshot
I said it’s a possible or potentially likely future. At some point do the economics support three US international carriers? Or, if WN is becoming more of a domestic legacy carrier, four legacies?
The "Legacy" term seems to have different meanings to different people.
Per the textbook definition (inter-state ops prior to deregulation) there are five remaining: AA, DL, UA, AS, HA
Those have some mostly common traits: All have regional feed. All but one do (over-water) international ops.
WN is excluded on the technicality that they didn't operate outside of TX before deregulation. But it's also a different animal with no regional feed and no (overwater) international. I'd consider SWA to be the king of domestic and LCC... and obviously big enough to have an impact on the legacies (especially AS and now HA)..