Serious, they should. All of the other hubs are either seeing non-trivial investment or (DEN) aren't that old or crowded anyway. The airline's already spending money on new airplanes, along with putting WiFi and power on old ones. You can't assume an extra $1 billion every quarter, so plowing that into operational expenses is foolish--though getting contracts with FAs and machinists had better be the highest priority.

Plus, I'd like to think that MWAA is more willing to make a deal considering how IAD has been losing traffic to DCA (Dulles saw a slight uptick in the latest quarter, but National still grew faster). UA's got cash, MWAA has a problem to fix, construction costs aren't too bad--it's time to move on this.