But what if Delta bought Jet Blue? Then American would have no choice but to buy Alaska... Then United buys Hawaiian and Southwest continues being Southwest and we all live happily ever after.

That's not implausible. Industry watchers have certainly not ruled out one more round of mergers, and it would probably end up being balanced in the manner your describe.

At some point the trust-busters have to decide how many little airlines is too few.

On the other hand the little airlines may not be able to thrive or even survive competing against the economy of scale of the big four. Maybe the trust busters will bow to the inevitable and not force the shareholders to ride doomed small companies into the ground when saviors exist who would buy them. Especially since the sudden liquidation of even a smallish major airline would be disruptive to travel and the economy, especially at the wrong time of year. Also considering that all training bandwidth available to the big three might be consumed with replacing retirees for a number of years... if you want to keep the pilots and planes of a small major flying, may be best to ensure that operating certificate continues to operate, vice liquidation and a fire sale of assets.

I just hope they stop this Moxy business. Just what we need another startup that will buy new airplanes and not pay it's pilots in exchange for the future promise of growth... then once they actually have to start maintaining their aircraft and paying their pilots they lose money and get bought..

Not going to happen this isn't 1991. Interest rates are so low the airline is more valuable as a whole and money is cheap to borrow.

Look at Frontier, they didn't liquidate. Last airline to do that was Island Air and they were no Spirit or Frontier.

Delta will not be allowed to buy JetBlue. The overlap at JFK is way to large.

That's what I said, unlikely in this era, even the smaller majors are almost too big to fail since the capacity loss would be disruptive. But never say never.

Stock price is almost half of what it was 2 years ago... Culture is at an all time low, and growth is nonexistent. I’d say with this current administration in place, there’s probably some urgency from the “big 3” to try and make something happen.

Who cares? I mean, aside from the people that have to work here. How do ****ed off employees translate into financial distress that necessitates us being bought?

It doesn't. But it's barely possible that a lot of employee angst could cause the BOD to shuffle top managers. Some boards think that restless natives endanger the bottom line (but some boards don't).

If Delta pulled their bid for VX because they thought it wouldn't get through anti trust, why would any of the big 3 be able to buy AS?