I was thinking about this last night: what if the US6 didn't merge to become the US3? Instead of merging, how would the industry look if the 3 non-surviving airlines (NW, CO, US) simply went out of business under sheer market pressure? Which assets of which airlines would have been picked up by whom?

You'll get very different answers depending on whether or not the assumption is that AA would have gone out of business (which wouldn't have happened given what fuel did) versus US simply going out of business (which was not a risk). With respect to NW and CO, I'm not sure things would look all that different from where their assets stand today (MSP being absorbed, CVG being de-hubbed, etc.)

Hold on, at time of merger US was profitable and AA was in chapter 11 was it not?

TWA772LR wrote:

I was thinking about this last night: what if the US6 didn't merge to become the US3? Instead of merging, how would the industry look if the 3 non-surviving airlines (NW, CO, US) simply went out of business under sheer market pressure? Which assets of which airlines would have been picked up by whom?

Personally, I think that even had the consolidation occurred differently - say, through liquidations instead of mergers - the general outline of consolidation among the six U.S. network carriers would probably have been about the same. The combinations that ultimately occurred all seem, in hindsight, pretty "natural" to me - meaning they seem like the most logical "fits." Delta and Northwest genuinely did have probably the most complimentary networks relative to each other - that combination seems to make logical sense now as it did then. The same goes for United and Continental, and AA and USAirways. Put differently - looking back in hindsight, those three specific combinations, one way or another, were probably always the ones that were going to happen.

winginit wrote:

You'll get very different answers depending on whether or not the assumption is that AA would have gone out of business (which wouldn't have happened given what fuel did) versus US simply going out of business (which was not a risk).

Agree, although I personally still contend - and I'd argue that subsequent history has largely validated - that if anything, USAirways needed the merger more than AA. I still think - as I have from literally the day the merger was formally announced - that the new, merged AA is a stronger competitor than either pre-merger AA or USAirways would have been independently. But that said, I think an independent, post-bankruptcy AA would have been far, far better prepared to face the market environment (including fares, products and labor costs) of 2017 than an independent, pre-merger USAirways.

RvA wrote:

Hold on, at time of merger US was profitable and AA was in chapter 11 was it not?

The irony is that AA was profitable, too. AA's structural problems were fairly well-known and straightforward. AA had long faced intractable competitive handicaps - many driven by the "residue" of legacy contracts and past business decisions, and others a direct result of union contracts (primarily with pilots, and mostly related to non-pay items like scope and codesharing). And many of those handicaps were relatively quickly dispensed with in bankruptcy court. Within months of the Chapter 11 filing, AA's financial performance had already turned around dramatically. What hadn't improved, obviously, was labor relations - which by that point were toxic beyond repair. And that's where the merger came in - it provided more congenial relations (at least temporarily) with Parker, and it facilitated economies of scale that made significant raises and QOL improvements possible for virtually all employees.

Ultimately, it is telling that even as a bankrupt company, AA's shareholders - not it's creditors, but its common stockholders - ended up owning more of the combined airline than USAirways' shareholders. That is virtually unheard of in the history of corporate America, and it pretty much tells us everything we need to know about the relative value of each company coming into the merger.

RvA wrote:

Hold on, at time of merger US was profitable and AA was in chapter 11 was it not?

[Comment deleted, above post tells the story.]

I could have seen a CO NWA hookup. Proposed once.

What would the sky and landscape look like if the proposed (mid 90's) Delta/Continental went through?
And if not, I think Delta would've still survived.

Interesting hypotheticals ...

TVNWZ wrote:

I could have seen a CO NWA hookup. Proposed once.

cokepopper wrote:

What would the sky and landscape look like if the proposed (mid 90's) Delta/Continental went through?
And if not, I think Delta would've still survived.

I don't think the networks would have "fit" as logically. The "common law marriage" between Continental and Northwest before Northwest ended up formally "tying the knot" with Delta seemed, in my view, always more a creature of defensive necessity for both carriers than driven by long-term economic, network and strategic logic. Indeed, I think that may be part of the reason - perhaps inadvertently or "subconsciously" - that Continental/Northwest never ultimately evolved into a full-blown merger. The overlap between IAH/MEM and DTW/CLE/EWR just seemed to great to overcome - similar to the equally ill-fated exploratory merger considerations of Continental/Delta and Continental/AA. The networks, while ostensibly complimentary to a certain extent, just didn't seem to fit together as well as Delta/Northwest. Similar story with United/USAirways - there was some complimentarity in the two networks in the sense that USAirways had zero presence in Asia and, at the time, independent United had a fairly robust network into Latin America. But on the domestic front, the overlap was extreme - partly intrinsic to the ultimately-unsustainable hub overlap within USAirways itself, but even more so in the context of, at the time, PHL/BWI/DCA/IAD/PIT/CLT/ORD all serving partly or, in some cases fully, overlapping network roles.

In the end, I still contend that - looking back in hindsight - the three combinations that did make the most economic, network and strategic sense truly were the three we ultimately got - Delta/Northwest, United/Continental and AA/USAirways.

RvA wrote:

Hold on, at time of merger US was profitable and AA was in chapter 11 was it not?

Actually, AA entered bankruptcy with more cash on hand and more assets than any other previous bankruptcy (Braniff, Continental, Eastern, Frontier (1), United, TWA, Pan Am, etc.). American would have exited bankruptcy on its own and would still be around. US Airways, although profitable at the time, had already been through multiple bankruptcies (2 as America West, 2 as US Airways), and may not have had enough critical mass to compete with any other combination which might have happened between AA, DL, UA and either Continental, Northwest, or any other combination.

Here is my unbiased assessment of how things might be different today. I truly believe that the Dr. Dao incident would have a much different, longer lasting financial impact on United. But because there are fewer airlines to consider when booking flights, UA can basically get away with whatever they want as is evident from that particular incident. Whats unbelievable is that some on here, because there was no financial hardship to UA or no real impact on bookings, that what happened to Dr. Dao was OK. I truly believe that because of this, there will be future Dr. Dao incidents, namely because certain airlines know they can get away with murder. So, to answer the OPs question, if there were no US mergers, we would see much better customer service from certain airlines.

I mentioned before I think there should have been Civil Aeronautics Board guided mergers PRIOR to deregulation. North Central and Southern for example announced their merger shortly after deregulation was passed into law.

But what if there had been prearranged mergers to level the playing field before the free-for-all of deregulation came to pass? Base them on increasing national exposure. Then give them a 2-3 year period to acclimate the new systems before full deregulation took affect.

Examples:

1. Pan Am desperately needed a domestic network and National was clearly the wrong partner for them in retrospect. But lets say the CAB looked at Pan Am's gateways and "suggested" that PA merge with Allegheny and Hughes Airwest. That would have given PA an initial domestic system well placed to focus on three of their international gateways: JFK, SFO and LAX. MIA could have been filled in later.
2. Continental and National. One strong in the west, one in the east, both with IAH as a strong central connecting point, plus DEN,LAX and MIA. DC-10's and 727's only at that point. A good match.
3. Northwest and Western. NW strong on the northern tier, WA west of the Rockies. Both airlines flying DC-10's and 727's with 747's for NW and 737's at WA. Western's network would have provided great feed for NW's Asian network.
4. Braniff and Frontier. Some overlap but the DEN/DFW combination would have been potent domestically and MIA could have been strengthened with one-stops like DEN-MEM-MIA and the like.
5. TWA and Piedmont. With TWA's east-west focus and PI's north-south position in the mid-Atlantic, it would have been a good combo to strengthen the NE gateways of TWA.
6. American and Southern. While MEM would probably have been not been a hub (too close to DFW) BNA might have taken that position and AA's weakness in the South at the time would have been filled.
7. Eastern and North Central. MSP, DTW, ATL, MIA and the heavy presence in the Northeast. It would have been intersting to see develop.
8. United and ???. All I have left is Ozark and STL would never survive with UA. I guess I could throw Ozark to Braniff or the National/Continental combo.

Its fun to speculate about what might have been.

in 1988 one great merger that would have given Pan AM Asian routes again was merging with Northwest. Sadly it didn't happen. NW and PA would have established a strong Atlantic and Pacific airline.

OzarkD9S wrote:

1. Pan Am desperately needed a domestic network and National was clearly the wrong partner for them in retrospect. But lets say the CAB looked at Pan Am's gateways and "suggested" that PA merge with Allegheny and Hughes Airwest. That would have given PA an initial domestic system well placed to focus on three of their international gateways: JFK, SFO and LAX. MIA could have been filled in later.

I'm not sure I agree with that.

Pan Am and National were unquestionably two very different airlines with two very different cultures and two very different business models oriented around two very different markets. But all that said, given where Pan Am was by the time of deregulation, I'd say that National might actually have been among the most logical merger partners - from a network standpoint - to go with.

I think the issue, though, was the timing. A merger between those two airlines was always going to be complex and messy as such different airlines were integrated together - but I'm not sure, in a lot of ways, it would really have been all that different that the different cultures brought together with, say, Northwest and Delta or even USAirways and AA. The key difference, though, is that by 1980 Pan Am's economic condition was already deteriorated to the point that it didn't have the resources necessary to maximize the potential value of the transaction, and the network synergies that came from it were too late to materially alter the course of Pan Am's continuing, diminishing competitive relevance versus bigger rivals like AA, Delta, United, etc. And, of course, timing also worked against Pan Am in the sense that by 1980, when it was finally free to merge with a big domestic operator, it ended up overpaying because a (relative) upstart rival - Texas Air - drove up the price.

Put differently - had Pan Am been allowed to merge with National in, say, 1970 instead of 1980, it's not unthinkable to me that the ultimate outcome could have been very, very different.

commavia wrote:

OzarkD9S wrote:

1. Pan Am desperately needed a domestic network and National was clearly the wrong partner for them in retrospect. But lets say the CAB looked at Pan Am's gateways and "suggested" that PA merge with Allegheny and Hughes Airwest. That would have given PA an initial domestic system well placed to focus on three of their international gateways: JFK, SFO and LAX. MIA could have been filled in later.

I'm not sure I agree with that.

Pan Am and National were unquestionably two very different airlines with two very different cultures and two very different business models oriented around two very different markets. But all that said, given where Pan Am was by the time of deregulation, I'd say that National might actually have been among the most logical merger partners - from a network standpoint - to go with.

I think the issue, though, was the timing. A merger between those two airlines was always going to be complex and messy as such different airlines were integrated together - but I'm not sure, in a lot of ways, it would really have been all that different that the different cultures brought together with, say, Northwest and Delta or even USAirways and AA. The key difference, though, is that by 1980 Pan Am's economic condition was already deteriorated to the point that it didn't have the resources necessary to maximize the potential value of the transaction, and the network synergies that came from it were too late to materially alter the course of Pan Am's continuing, diminishing competitive relevance versus bigger rivals like AA, Delta, United, etc. And, of course, timing also worked against Pan Am in the sense that by 1980, when it was finally free to merge with a big domestic operator, it ended up overpaying because a (relative) upstart rival - Texas Air - drove up the price.

Put differently - had Pan Am been allowed to merge with National in, say, 1970 instead of 1980, it's not unthinkable to me that the ultimate outcome could have been very, very different.

I appreciate your take on things. You may be right on the timing thing and there were many proposed mergers that were pooh-poohed by the CAB during their reign. Actually if you go back to the early 60's, PA and NA would have been a good combo. At least after NA got their west coast routes. Had that occurred either in the 60's or 1970, then I would throw Ozark into the mix into my pre-deregulation scenario. The mid-continent hub at STL would have balanced the network somewhat and certainly have given TWA a run.

CO probably would have been fine. A NW merger could have worked, seeing as they were alliance partners for quite some time.

Delta and Continental back in 1996

http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/04/busin ... ml?mcubz=0

Boeing778X wrote:

CO probably would have been fine. A NW merger could have worked, seeing as they were alliance partners for quite some time.

And yet MEM and CLE would have still been redundant in that scenario, but yes it would have worked.

EA outbidding PA for NA would have been an interesting situation as well; that carrier would go from being strong on the east coast to being THE dominant carrier there, with decent European routes from MIA and room to grow at IAH.

I would have liked a merger with NC/SO/OZ/TI, (before CO). All DC-9 operators. Maybe even Allegheny. How different things would have been with the WA/CO merger on the western US.

EA CO AS wrote:

EA outbidding PA for NA would have been an interesting situation as well; that carrier would go from being strong on the east coast to being THE dominant carrier there, with decent European routes from MIA and room to grow at IAH.

PA and EA should have gotten married, not EA and NA. However, I don't think anything could have saved PA. By 1980 they were flailing due to lack of domestic feed and gross mismanagement.

In regards to AA/US, I've always wondered where we'd be now if HP had acquired TZ in late 2004. Certainly that deal falling through was impetus behind HP going after US less than a year later, and I don't think they would have been able to digest an acquisition and a large (at the time) merger in such quick succession.

cokepopper wrote:

What would the sky and landscape look like if the proposed (mid 90's) Delta/Continental went through?
And if not, I think Delta would've still survived.

CVG would still be a DL hub, and MEM would have remained a NW (or successor) hub.

TWA772LR wrote:

I was thinking about this last night: what if the US6 didn't merge to become the US3? Instead of merging, how would the industry look if the 3 non-surviving airlines (NW, CO, US) simply went out of business under sheer market pressure? Which assets of which airlines would have been picked up by whom?

CO would not have gone out of business. They were a strong airline at the time. Their willingness to merge was to remain relevant with all the consolidation around them.

I can't speak for the other two.

DfwAussie wrote:

EA CO AS wrote:

EA outbidding PA for NA would have been an interesting situation as well; that carrier would go from being strong on the east coast to being THE dominant carrier there, with decent European routes from MIA and room to grow at IAH.

PA and EA should have gotten married, not EA and NA. However, I don't think anything could have saved PA. By 1980 they were flailing due to lack of domestic feed and gross mismanagement.

Problem is that Pan Am had burnt bridges with the CAB before deregulation, and that's why they didn't get any route awards during the last years of deregulation (from the Transpacific Route case onward). A merger between Pan Am and TWA would have been great, but the regulators wouldn't allow it because it would have created an international (read: Transatlantic) monopoly of U.S. flag carriers (until National got MIA-LHR). Pan Am/Braniff would have made sense due to Braniff's hub in Dallas (look what American has done with DFW since Braniff folded), as would have Braniff and Eastern or National and Braniff.

You're correct about management issues at Pan Am, but really there's a lot more involved than just that. After Juan Trippe, Pan Am just went downhill, although it started with too many 747's, plus the image they had as the de facto U.S. flag carrier, which caused terrorism issues as well. If Lockerbie hadn't happened, they may have been able to pull something off.

7673mech wrote:

CO would not have gone out of business. They were a strong airline at the time. Their willingness to merge was to remain relevant with all the consolidation around them.

Personally, I think that one way or another, Continental was not going to remain independent. Realistically, the competitive and economic dynamics that undermined the CLE hub (like the PIT, CVG, MEM and STL hubs) were coming one way or another. Sooner or later, Continental was going to be essentially a two-hub airline with EWR for the northeast and Europe and IAH for the south, east-west and Latin America, and I don't think that would have been a sufficiently sustainable independent network long-term.

TWA772LR wrote:

I was thinking about this last night: what if the US6 didn't merge to become the US3? Instead of merging, how would the industry look if the 3 non-surviving airlines (NW, CO, US) simply went out of business under sheer market pressure? Which assets of which airlines would have been picked up by whom?

Everybody overlooks that the mergers were done by way of stock exchange. If NW ,CO, and AA or US had gone out of business their assets would have gone to the highest bidder for cold, hard cash. If,for example AA had bought NW's assets at MSP, plus sufficient aircraft to maintain it's hub status, then DL might have been in the market for chunks of CO and so on. Equally, the various hubs might have ended up with different buyers,rather than going all together ,as happened in the mergers.

What needs analysis would be who, at the time of the DL/NW merger, would have had the financial resources to buy what from the wreckage of NW, and a guesstimate of what the landscape would have looked like at the subsequent mergers.

US was days from going under in winter of 2005 or 6. They had a week or two left.

They would have never made it to the AA merger had outside parties not intervened

From what I understand, when Norfolk-Southern bought a chunk of PI they explored hooking up with TW or PA. It was McGees' inside experience that put the idea on ice.

NW and AA held informal exploratory talks in the early 2000s but were abandoned based on labor union issues.

Western and National and WA & CO were in deep talks at one point in the 70s. I *think* the OPEC oil shock killed those ideas.

Lorenzos TI looked at everyone. I recall TW, WA, Air Florida were prime candidates but it was COs desperation that sealed that deal.

FWIW when I was at NW the offical story was that CO was an invaluable partner but brought nothing to the table as a combined entity.

I've always wondered about a hypothetical merger between US/NW, if nothing else but for fleet commonality.

TVNWZ wrote:

I could have seen a CO NWA hookup. Proposed once.

The NW CO hookup very nearly happened.the management at CO and NW both were for it.The Godlen share that NW held withCO gave them control of who CO could merge with

TVNWZ wrote:

I could have seen a CO NWA hookup. Proposed once.

The NW CO hookup very nearly happened.the management at CO and NW both were for it.The Godlen share that NW held withCO gave them control of who CO could merge with

jfklganyc wrote:

US was days from going under in winter of 2005 or 6. They had a week or two left.

They would have never made it to the AA merger had outside parties not intervened

Are you trying to say the HP merger saved US? Or trying to say they were on borrowed time from 2005/6 to 2013?

TWA772LR wrote:

jfklganyc wrote:

US was days from going under in winter of 2005 or 6. They had a week or two left.

They would have never made it to the AA merger had outside parties not intervened

Are you trying to say the HP merger saved US? Or trying to say they were on borrowed time from 2005/6 to 2013?

He meant the HP merger saved US (because it did). But I am unsure if you are including that merger in your hypothetical never happened.

I think Pan AM & Republic would've been a great match. In December 1980 Republic had sizable operations in MSP, DTW, MEM, ATL, MCO, SFO, LAS, MCO, SEA, & PHX.

thegoldenargosy wrote:

I think Pan AM & Republic would've been a great match. In December 1980 Republic had sizable operations in MSP, DTW, MEM, ATL, MCO, SFO, LAS, MCO, SEA, & PHX.

The main argument I would have against this is that RC didn't have much of a presence in any of the Pan Am gateway cities. To make it work they'd have had to do some hub shifting. PA never was going to be the kind of airline that would fly to places like Minot, Wausau, Jackson, MS, et.al. Had this happened, probably 2/3 of the RC system at it's zenith would have been dismantled.

Not sure any of them, besides NWA would have gone out of business. CO was a merger with United and was a blending of the airlines. CO was not in its corporate death rattle. US Air merged with AMR, but in a lot of ways, while US Air took AMR's name, it was the surviving carrier. AMR had just come out of bankruptcy. What many companies believed was that the number of competitors made controlling capacity impossible and the fares could not cover the costs.

As an aside, I always advocated UAL being acquired by TAylor Guitars, but I was accused of stringing that one along. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

OzarkD9S wrote:

I mentioned before I think there should have been Civil Aeronautics Board guided mergers PRIOR to deregulation. North Central and Southern for example announced their merger shortly after deregulation was passed into law.

But what if there had been prearranged mergers to level the playing field before the free-for-all of deregulation came to pass? Base them on increasing national exposure. Then give them a 2-3 year period to acclimate the new systems before full deregulation took affect.

Examples:

1. Pan Am desperately needed a domestic network and National was clearly the wrong partner for them in retrospect. But lets say the CAB looked at Pan Am's gateways and "suggested" that PA merge with Allegheny and Hughes Airwest. That would have given PA an initial domestic system well placed to focus on three of their international gateways: JFK, SFO and LAX. MIA could have been filled in later.
2. Continental and National. One strong in the west, one in the east, both with IAH as a strong central connecting point, plus DEN,LAX and MIA. DC-10's and 727's only at that point. A good match.
3. Northwest and Western. NW strong on the northern tier, WA west of the Rockies. Both airlines flying DC-10's and 727's with 747's for NW and 737's at WA. Western's network would have provided great feed for NW's Asian network.
4. Braniff and Frontier. Some overlap but the DEN/DFW combination would have been potent domestically and MIA could have been strengthened with one-stops like DEN-MEM-MIA and the like.
5. TWA and Piedmont. With TWA's east-west focus and PI's north-south position in the mid-Atlantic, it would have been a good combo to strengthen the NE gateways of TWA.
6. American and Southern. While MEM would probably have been not been a hub (too close to DFW) BNA might have taken that position and AA's weakness in the South at the time would have been filled.
7. Eastern and North Central. MSP, DTW, ATL, MIA and the heavy presence in the Northeast. It would have been intersting to see develop.
8. United and ???. All I have left is Ozark and STL would never survive with UA. I guess I could throw Ozark to Braniff or the National/Continental combo.

Its fun to speculate about what might have been.

Yea I agree with your theory that there should of been some consolidation before full blown deregulation. I fully feel its fixed its self now with airfares at about the same has 20 years ago. I personally think the mergers happened and righted the industry for now.

Bald1983 wrote:

US Air merged with AMR, but in a lot of ways, while US Air took AMR's name, it was the surviving carrier. AMR had just come out of bankruptcy.

I think all three major mergers actually played out that way. CO/UA was very much Continental d/b/a United while the new Delta felt a lot like Northwest. If you look at it, the CEOs of all three newly merged airlines were previously CEOs of the smaller airline, although Anderson was at DL at the time of the merger and did have a step between leaving NWA and joining DL.

Imagine what MKE would look like if FL/YX merged? WN wouldnt have bought FL if that deal went through. I Feel really bad for YX employees who got screwed from RP. I bet MKE would have a lot of int'l service now.

B6 and.... everyone?

airtrantpa wrote:

Imagine what MKE would look like if FL/YX merged? WN wouldnt have bought FL if that deal went through. I Feel really bad for YX employees who got screwed from RP. I bet MKE would have a lot of int'l service now.

Maybe, maybe not. It's all speculation that is based on opinion. I do agree that YX was an excellent airline until they were bought by Republic. ANother is a line of good carriers ruined by bad mergers and management.

[twoid][/twoid]

jfklganyc wrote:

US was days from going under in winter of 2005 or 6. They had a week or two left.

They would have never made it to the AA merger had outside parties not intervened

Wow I was not aware of that. Is there anywhere you know of where I could learn more about that time in US history?

DfwAussie wrote:

airtrantpa wrote:

Imagine what MKE would look like if FL/YX merged? WN wouldnt have bought FL if that deal went through. I Feel really bad for YX employees who got screwed from RP. I bet MKE would have a lot of int'l service now.

Maybe, maybe not. It's all speculation that is based on opinion. I do agree that YX was an excellent airline until they were bought by Republic. ANother is a line of good carriers ruined by bad mergers and management.

YX was a fantastic airline. RP ruined YX. I wish YX would have made it alone. I remember non revving them to MKE to see my brother just after airtran announced they wanted to buy YX. The employees treated me well. Service was awesome and I do miss the cookies. As a FL employee I think FL offer was best for YX, whether that be biased or not I dunno. But what I do know is what YX employees were scared of happening at FL came.to fruition and more with RP. I bet MKE would have surpassed BWI as a second primary hub for FL, and I bet with INTl traffic would have pulled people from MDW, and would have been a big FU after Daley and company basically gave WN a monopoly at MDW

Boeing778X wrote:

CO probably would have been fine. A NW merger could have worked, seeing as they were alliance partners for quite some time.

Well Northwest did buy Continental but didn't merge the 2 airlines. In Gordon Bethune's book, he rips Delta for its merger proposal which required cessation of all things CO. He and the board went with NW that allowed CO to remain independent.

airtrantpa wrote:

YX was a fantastic airline. RP ruined YX. I wish YX would have made it alone.

Midwest was a great airline with a solid product/service offering and well-earned reputation. But whether through an acquisition by AirTran or Republic (or Northwest!), or outright liquidation, Midwest Midwest would never have made it alone. There was no way that a tiny airline - still oriented primarily towards a declining premium market offering, flying primarily out of small hubs in MKE and MCI - was going to survive long-term.

If United hadn't merged with Continental, I think Continental should have merged with Alaska. (And in that scenario VX would be scooped up by B6)

But another interesting what if was the rumored HP+TW merger around 1998 or 1999.

SANAV8R wrote:

If United hadn't merged with Continental, I think Continental should have merged with Alaska.

Personally, I think that Alaska would have had the financial wherewithal to stay independent, and resist a merger, whether Continental merged with United or not.

SANAV8R wrote:

But another interesting what if was the rumored HP+TW merger around 1998 or 1999.

The prospect of the late-2000 America West-TWA codeshare turning into a full blown merger, indeed, an intriguing 'what if.' On one hand, that route map opens up interesting possibilities for network synergies, and would have given the resulting airline a fairly minimal presence on the East Coast but dense coverage of the Midwest (somewhat the opposite of the Midwest-light "barbell" network that resulted from the merger America West ultimately pursued, with USAirways). On the other hand, I strongly suspect that the combined carrier resulting from a hypothetical merger of America West and TWA - neither of which was a particularly strong company in 2000 - would very likely not have survived the aftermath of 9/11.

Well there was talk in the early 80s before Northwest and Republic merged, where AA was interested in Republic. DTW had a strong presence of AA and Republic, could you imagine MSP as an AA hub?

I would have liked to see North Central and Frontier. Or Midwest and Virgin America.