Recent airline mergers in the US have clearly been a net negative for customers, probably for this exact reason. All of the airlines already flew to basically all the major airports, so mergers simply served to reduce competition and worsen prices and quality of service.

On the other hand, until the recent consolidation, US airlines were a terrible investment, so perhaps it’s not a viable business without huge economies of scale.

There’s even a joke of “how to go from billionaire to millionaire? Buy an airline”.

Sounds like an area for Vision Fund to extend the We brand into. Fits their model well.

If you want to be a millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline.

- Richard Branson

I feel like in the US, the massive domestic airline consolidation has mostly shrunk networks.