This past week, the three major unions at Amer­i­can Air­lines agreed to sup­port a merger with US Air­ways Group, the par­ent com­pany of US Air­ways. This does not, of course, mean that a merger is def­i­nite, but it’s an impor­tant step on the way to com­bin­ing the two airlines.

It’s a remark­able twist in the his­tory of the United States air­line indus­try since dereg­u­la­tion, and most likely means that only a sin­gle major air­line will remain from the days before the 1978 deregulation.

Oh, sure, there are a hand­ful of famil­iar names painted on the sides of air­craft. But United was recently bought by Con­ti­nen­tal, who kept the more-​​familiar United name. And Con­ti­nen­tal itself was bought by Texas Inter­na­tional, a small regional player, in 1978. In terms of cor­po­rate her­itage, then, United is merely a renam­ing of Texas Inter­na­tional. Sim­i­larly, US Air­ways (for­merly known as USAir, and even ear­lier as Allegheny) was bought by Amer­ica West Air­lines in 2005; Amer­ica West was a child of dereg­u­la­tion, start­ing ser­vice in 1983. Only Delta and Amer­i­can of the old guard air­lines have “pure” lin­eage. (more…)