Originally Posted by whlinder
I don't think the DOT would like one airline to control so much of the WAS market at both DCA and IAD. Remember the 'DC Air' spinoff that was to be the US Airways DCA operation when UA was buying UA?
It will stink to go back to the days of high fares but FlyI had quite an ambitious plan that they are finally starting to adjust to reflect the market reality. Whether they get it fixed in time remains to be seen. And I still think HP is the most likely partner, but perhaps F9 will be interested as well. Afterall, if your choice is Mesa or unemployment, which one do you pick?
DC metro is already extensively served by multiple airlines, especially if you bring in BWI.
Hubs, you have UA and Indy at IAD, US at DCA, Southwest at BWI
And then focus cities, Airtran at BWI and JetBlue at IAD.
From Chicago, for instance, I can fly nonstop on Southwest, Indy, ATA, American, US and United to the DC airports.
If some of the current airlines went under, it wouldn't be much of a stretch for the others to beef up the operations - if that was even needed.
The way airlines keep holding on nowadays, I would expect to see either all three (US, US, Indy) go under, or none of them.