What is/was their financial position, and their perceived position generally in the USA before the merger and post 9/11 ?
They were really struggling even before 9/11 and ended up shutting down one of their hubs. I don’t think they ever got their head back above water but post-9/11 has created an environment where they look good compared to the average airline. They are hurting but not as bad as US or UA.
After they shut down their CMH hub their exposure East of the Mississippi River just about vanished. Given the percentage of the US population that lives East of the Mighty Miss. that really hurts their image. They’ve made back some ground post-9/11 by moving towards being a LCC (but who hasn’t?).
I personally don’t see AWA gaining anything from merging with US other than a stronger brand name. US is desperate to find a liferaft that they’ll grab onto anything that floats by and that happened to be AWA. What success AWA has had by reinventing themselves as a LCC won’t transfer into the US system especially with Southwest already gunning for them on the East Coast.
It’ll be interesting to see what will remaining from the the AWA and US route structures when the dust settles from the merger. I have this feeling that it’ll be only a small portion of the originals but that’s my guess.
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