Well, to start with, it’s not a merger. The airlines are not taking an equity stake in each other, let alone fully merging.

They are seeking the right to enhance and expand their level of co-operation, with what is known as Anti-Trust Immunity. This would allow them to codeshare on each others services from London Heathrow (they have been doing it from regional airports for a number of years), set joint fares, and share the profits between them as they see fit. This would be equivelant to the level of co-operation already permitted between a number of European/US carriers, most notably KLM/Northwest, who have had Anti-Trust immunity for many years, since the Netherlands signed an Open-Skies agreement with the US. Lufthansa/United, and Air France/Delta also have anti-trust immunity, so can co-operate fully.

Peronally, despite the market dominance of the two carriers at LHR, and the dominance of LHR in the US-Europe air transport market, I think it is about time these two airlines were permitted to work together properly, otherwise the precedents set in approving the other alliances are a mockery! You can’t have it one way, and not the other! I think there will need to be some small level of slot surrender at LHR (previously the airlines considered the number of slots they had to give up to be too many), but given that all of the big US carriers are now into LHR then this shouldn’t be such a sticking point as before.