United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has floated a merger with American Airlines to the highest levels of the Trump administration — including the president himself — in what would be the most consequential airline consolidation in more than a decade.
Whether it ever actually happens is another story entirely.
Kirby pitched the potential tie-up during a February 25 White House meeting that was originally scheduled to discuss the future of Dulles Airport (where United operates a hub), Reuters reported Monday, citing two sources with knowledge of the matter. The Bloomberg report that first broke the story of Kirby’s merger ideology noted the United CEO has also made his case to other senior government officials, though no formal deal process is believed to be underway. Neither airline has issued a comment regarding the reports.
The strategic logic Kirby has apparently sold to the Trump administration centers on international competitiveness: a merged United-American would be a formidable global juggernaut at a time when foreign carriers, which already control two-thirds of long-haul seats to and from the U.S., hold a considerable edge. Combined, the two carriers would far eclipse Delta as the world’s largest airline by available capacity, according to OAG data.
The business case, though, runs headlong into some serious real-world complications.
The U.S. airline market is already a cozy four-way club — American, Delta, United and Southwest each hold roughly 17% of domestic traffic, per DOT data — and a United-American combination would effectively reduce that to three. Nowhere would the competitive impact be felt more acutely than Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, where the two carriers have spent years in a white-knuckle battle over gates and market share.
Regulators would almost certainly demand major asset divestitures before blessing any deal, and even then, industry officials who spoke to Reuters privately were blunt: Getting this approved would be exceedingly difficult, full stop.
There’s also the not-insignificant matter of antitrust history. Regulators successfully blocked JetBlue‘s far smaller proposed acquisition of Spirit Airlines in 2024 — a deal that never had the market-concentration implications of a United-American pairing. That precedent looms large, even with an administration that has generally been friendlier to big business. One person close to the White House told Reuters there is already skepticism internally, with concern about soaring jet fuel prices driving fares higher ahead of the November midterms.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been more openly receptive, saying earlier this month that he believes there is “room for consolidation” in the industry — while adding any deal would still face close scrutiny on consumer impact.
American, for its part, is hardly arriving at the negotiating table from a position of strength. The Fort Worth-based carrier carries roughly $25 billion in long-term debt, more than its larger rivals, and is still working through a turnaround after an ill-fated distribution strategy alienated agencies and corporate travel managers. Its market cap sits at just $7 billion compared to United’s $31 billion. Kirby himself, who served as American’s president from 2013 to 2016, once described the prospect of acquiring an entire airline as “a lot of brain damage.”
JetBlue, meanwhile, has emerged in widespread industry speculation as another potential acquisition target as the current bout of turbulence continues to separate the industry’s haves from have-nots.
Kirby signaled as much in a March Bloomberg Television interview, saying United would be positioned to “pick up some assets” if the fuel shock worsened — and when pressed on whether that meant entire companies, offered a coy “we’ll see, there’s lots of rumors about that.”
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