I don't think that is the answer. The airline industry, as a whole, is hugely unprofitable. It's one of the few industries that has basically not made a profit ever since it was established. Mergers may reduce competition, but they are preferable to bankruptcies, which were a regular occurrence in the industry up until the most recent round of mergers. Profit margins in the aviation industry are small enough that it is unlikely that more competition would benefit customers in any way. In fact, it might accelerate the race to the bottom as smaller airlines struggled to survive.