I took his comments about winning in NYC to mean we are finally getting serious about competing with JB (and to a lesser extent AMR and soon SWA's smaller but growing presence).

The time to buy JB was prior to the massive overlay first with Dash-8's and 50 seaters, and then with larger RJ's and mainlines. The anti-trust issues now due to our actions over the last few years would be immense. And even if aprooved, the slot divesture required to get the rubber stamp would amount to the single greatest act of government mandated charity to date (read: SWA windfall).

As for their A/C inventory, I doubt anything they have is locked in under any better terms than we could get, quickly, on the open market anyway WRT fleet refreshment. We could replace the 9's and as many MD's as we wanted with 320's very, very quickly, under equal or better terms, but the problem is debt and absorbing any airline with a bunch of new planes means inheriting their debt. If the 190 was so desirable we could get a fleet of those as well pretty quickly but again that costs short term and we look as if we want to avoid that. A merger would also cost big money. A fragmentation/partial asset sale OTOH would be far easier and cheaper and require a lot less (SWA) charity.