Originally Posted by
FriendlyPilot
You can't compare # of planes. The entire industry was smaller back then. United was the largest airline in the world with 320 mainline planes total and had a 17% of market share. PanAm had around 8% market share when they went out of business which is almost double Spirit's market share today.
The market share argument is a valid one, however, I would say no have half the number of major/legacy airlines as we do today. The ripple would be much larger today then back then. I would recommend reading the DOJ's arguments from the merger trial. I think it would help put into perspective todays thinking vs what happened in the industry almost 40 years ago.