United Airlines' parent corporation, with its all-important "network" and "787" has earned just $196 million (excluding special items) in the first six months of 2013.
AMR, parent company to the far-too-small-to-survive-let-alone-thrive American Airlines, has earned $365 million (also excluding special items) in the first six months of 2013.
And AA doesn't even fly to Dubai. As eolesen has tried to remind everyone, being biggest isn't always the guaranteed road to superior profits. AS is an excellent example.
About the linked article: I laughed when the Wall St analyst said that DL and UA were big enough to successfully compete against Emirates but that AA needed to add the huge US Airways international network in order to succeed against EK.
That huge US international network that consists of zero flights across the Pacific, just two to South America (Brazil), just two flights to London, a few flights to business destinations like Germany, Ireland and France, and another dozen or so to second-tier seasonal destinations like Venice and Lisbon. And one flight to TLV from PHL that carries mostly connecting passengers.
The reality is that Emirates has a plan to buy at least 90 A380s and several hundred 777s, in addition to orders for plenty of A350s and perhaps other planes. A state-owned airline in Dubai that has designs of DXB supplanting LHR as the world's primary international connecting hub. No private enterprise airline in the USA has a chance of beating state-owned Emirates for traffic to India or Dubai, and perhaps for dozens of other destinations as EK grows. Marrying AA and US together won't matter at all in the fight against EK.