Now Arriving: Mergers

US Airways' play for Delta could force struggling legacy airlines to link up--or go the way of TWA

Oh, great! That's just what we need before the busiest travel time of the year--a merger of two flying dinosaurs to create the country's first behemoth airline. And to top it off, the proposed $8 billion takeover of Delta Air Lines by US Airways would join the two major carriers that finished at the bottom of one of the 2006 quality ratings.

Actually, such a merger might not be so bad. The airline industry is suffering from overcapacity --too many airline seats chasing too few "good" customers (those paying profitable fares). The government helped skew the industry by propping up failing...

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