A few months ago we learned how United CEO Scott Kirby had reportedly approached American CEO Robert Isom about the concept of a merger. American “rejected” this for obvious reasons, arguing there was no way this would get regulatory approval. Nonetheless, Kirby made his case publicly about how this would be good for consumers.
As it turns out, before Kirby approached Isom, he actually approached Delta CEO Ed Bastian about the concept of a merger between those two airlines.
The idea of a Delta & United merger was floated in 2025
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that last year, Kirby made a phone call to Bastian about the concept of a merger between United and Delta.
Delta leaders reportedly discussed the approach and merits of a potential deal as part of preliminary due diligence, and talks didn’t progress, as both companies moved on from the proposal. Then months later, Kirby tried the same thing with Isom.
Kirby’s ambition is to build one US mega carrier, and he has used a “trade deficit” argument to support this concept being good for consumers. The idea is that the US has more international service from foreign carriers than on local carriers, and the way to address that is to build an even more powerful airline.
Bastian, meanwhile, has been consistent in arguing that there shouldn’t be any consolidation between big US carriers, and that any consolidation would center around the smaller players.
In 2025, Delta and United accounted for 90% of the US airline industry profits. At the moment, United has a market cap of $38 billion, while Delta has a market cap of $56 billion. While there had long been talk of United possibly buying JetBlue, in recent times, Kirby has argued that the deal isn’t big enough to make sense.
I’d love to know what’s going on in Kirby’s head
If United and Delta could get regulatory approval for a merger, of course they’d do so, since they’d dominate the market, and would have so much pricing power. The issue here is how one gets regulatory for such a deal, because it would unarguably be awful — like, truly, truly terrible — for competition.
Surely Kirby knows this, and my guess is that he just thinks that if there’s ever a chance that something like this would be allowed, it would be while President Trump is in office. Kirby has been doing everything he can to flatter Trump, and maybe it was all in anticipation of this “ask.” But even so, it’s just beyond reasonable.
As I explained when United floated the idea of buying American, one can’t possibly put into words how bad it would be for the competitive landscape if two of the “big three” carriers merged. But Kirby’s argument seems to be a combination of grasping at straws, and hoping to make people patriotic, or something:
- Kirby basically acknowledges fares would go up (he has made it clear that even when oil prices go down, he hopes United can keep fares up and boost margins), but he’s saying fares don’t matter, but instead, value is what counts; people don’t want cheap tickets, they want a nice experience!
- This concept of creating a competitive airline globally is what would be worst for competition, since it would essentially destroy the balance of joint ventures, which is what keeps long haul airfare competitive (it’s useful to have three sets of these, one with each of the “big three” alliances)
- Then there’s just talk of the US economy in general, and this is where it gets the most ridiculous; Kirby talks about how the combined airline will have lots of union jobs, will strengthen US aircraft manufacturing, etc. (that’s already happening, and for that matter, United has also been ordering hundreds of Airbus planes)
I was hoping that Kirby’s argument in favor of such a deal would be a bit more sophisticated, but it really isn’t. It’s essentially just somewhere between trying to call in favors to Trump, and trying to pose as being patriotic. The idea is to completely overlook concerns about domestic competition by making this all about international service.
Bottom line
We recently learned how United CEO Scott Kirby came up with the idea of buying American. Even before that, though, he reportedly approached Delta about such a deal, but was quickly rejected. Kirby’s proposal to build a mega US carrier would be great for investors, and no one else.
I have to assume that Kirby knows this, and is just trying to convince himself otherwise. The timing here also isn’t a coincidence, because clearly he believes he has a “once in a lifetime” opportunity to make this happen, while Trump is in office. But even Trump wouldn’t do this to the American people… right?
What do you make of Kirby’s proposal for United and Delta to merge?
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