Aviation: The Merger Cotillion

As soon as the nation's second and third domestic airlines—American and Eastern—declared their agreement to merge, opposition revved up on all sides last week. Other airlines, fearing sharper competition, protested. Democratic Senator Estes Kefauver said the merger plan has "the most serious of monopolistic implications"; Representative Emanuel Celler said he would investigate. Mike Quill's Transport Workers Union worried about layoffs among the 9,000 American maintenance men that it represents, threatened to strike after Feb. 1 unless the two lines pledged that there would be no job cuts. Bobby Kennedy was yet to...