What AMR really wants is to be rid of Eagle, not combine anything. There is no way on God's green earth that AMR would merge the company's voluntarily. Right now, AE is a dying duck with obsolete 37-50 seat money holes and only 25 70-seat narrow bodies. And if you count the 22 70 seaters given to the company (via the secret "verbal" deal with Bombardier) by a compliant arbitrator, 47 potentially. That's compared to I think about 150 that Delta has now after they've turned Delta ALPA a company union.

What AE should be doing is flying fast efficient Q400s on short-medium range feeder routes instead of very high cost per seat mile small jets.

What they really want is the flexibility to outsource small jet and narrow body flying (70+ seaters) as they see fit. What they want is Delta plus and a complete surrender of scope by the APA.