An AP article today repeats what we have been hearing for some time now -- "Conventional wisdom holds that in mergers, airlines could reduce overlapping routes and raise prices."

Do all of the pratitioners of "conventional wisdom" who have been extolling the virtues of legacy carrier consolidation not know about Southwest, Jet Blue, Air Tran, or Frontier?? It seems to me that the discount carriers would love to see domestic cutbacks by the legacy carriers that would allow them to step in with added capacity and keep prices low. I'm trying to figure out how the legacy carriers who consolidate will gain domestic route pricing power.

Am I missing something??