Airline CEO Doug Parker says that there is one more big merger deal to be done in the United States and that is with his airline, US Airways.    Parker’s comment was made during US Airways recent media day.

The question is, who?  I’ve said before that US Airways and AA could actually do a nice deal when it comes to the complementary nature of the two airlines but I have also noted that you would be combining two airlines with very bad union relations right now.    Furthermore, neither has the cash to do the deal and a stock swap is just swapping one so-so share for another. 

The truth is, I think US Airways has something AA needs.  The executive team.  The US Airways executive team manages to deliver profits despite being an airline with not a lot of international traffic and an airline with no hub that anyone views as particularly strategic.   I would like to see that team manage American Airlines’ resources.  I think we would all be pleasantly surprised financially.

I actually don’t see a partner for US Airways.  Not right now.  It isn’t an low cost carrier (ironically enough, US Airways stock symbol is LCC) as the models are two widely apart.  It isn’t an airline that shares a similar fleet as US Airways flies Boeing and Airbus and within the Airbus fleet, it flies two somewhat dissimilar fleets of A320 series aircraft. 

I cannot identify an airline that has a strategic position that would complement US Airways routes without being a clash in every other way.  JetBlue owns JFK and an Airbus fleet but the clash in cultures and everything else makes me shudder.  The same is true for Frontier Airlines.

Southwest has no interest in them.  They simply identify where US Airways is strong and then move in to compete with them.  Southwest wins and US Airways moves along to another place.

SuperLegacies?  They don’t need US Airways.  There is no real route rationalization to be had in many cases and the few places where one SuperLegacy might want more dominance are places where anti-trust regulation is unlikely to grant it.

Right now, US Airways is on its own and that’s OK.  This is a profitable airline and, in many cases, more profitable than SuperLegacies.  5 years from now may prove differently but I don’t see it in the next 2 years or even 3.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax