DALLAS — A government review finds that the merger of American Airlines and US Airways would reduce competition on more than 1,600 routes traveled by more than 53 million passengers.
That's a greater loss of competition than occurred with the 2010 merger of United Airlines and Continental Airlines, an analyst for the Government Accountability Office told a U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday.
Antitrust regulators at the Justice Department are reviewing the proposed American-US Airways deal, which also faces a vote by US Airways shareholders and would need approval by the federal judge overseeing American's bankruptcy case.
American and US Airways executives have defended their merger by noting that they overlap on only 12 nonstop routes.
But the GAO also considered connecting routes — those with at least one stop. GAO analyst Gerald Dillingham told a Senate aviation subcommittee that if the merger is approved, competition would decline because there would be one less airline flying those connecting routes.
There is at least one other airline on most of those 1,665 routes, Dillingham said, including low-cost airlines on 473 of them.
US Airways Group Inc. CEO Doug Parker, who will lead the combined company if the merger is approved, told the Senate panel that the deal would be good for consumers by creating a bigger airline with service to more locations than either American or US Airways can offer on their own. It would be the world's biggest airline.
"A broader airline network is better for passengers because it gives them more choices, a wider variety of services, and more competition on more routes," Parker said. He added that it would create a more powerful competitor for United and Delta, which are much bigger than No. 3 American or No. 5 US Airways.
