American Airlines and US Airways merger plans proceed as the silly macho battle ends

The saga that ensued after the US Department of Justice in Aug-2013 sued to block the merger between American Airlines and US Airways is now officially over. Arguably, not too much will change once the conditions of the settlement are implemented - which begs the question of why the two sides did not act more responsibly in the first place to prevent a protracted and futile legal exercise that only added extra expense to the already expensive proposition of combining two airlines.

The whole affair smacks of wasteful macho grandstanding. In the end, only limited concessions were imposed - but presumably the airlines had not been prepared to concede them in negotiations - and nobody comes out of this looking clever.

The bulk of the concessions agreed to by American and US Airways - slot divestment at Washington National Airport - was not surprising since speculation was rampant that the carriers would likely have to shed some slots at the airport in order to move forward. While American and US Airways opted to stick to their bullishness that no divestment was necessary, in the end holding stubborn to their beliefs resulted in a three month delay of the merger moving forward - hardly responsible behaviour for a company that is attempting to build a powerful global carrier.