For US Airways, it's familiar territory — the airline failed to secure the government's blessing in 2001 for its merger with United Airlines and abandoned the deal. The concerns raised then, albeit in a much different, pre-9/11 context, presaged objections to the deal now: How much consolidation is too much in the airline industry?
In last week's suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the Justice Department seemingly concluded that a tipping point has been reached. While the mergers of Delta Air Lines Inc. and Northwest Airlines Corp. in 2008 and United Air Lines Inc. and Continental Airlines Inc. in 2010 passed antitrust muster with minimal concessions, regulators now have drawn a line: The combination of American, the fourth-biggest U.S. airline, with No. 5 US Airways goes too far.
