How many years are you guys going to pedal these self made rumors? Year after year, still nothing, not even a deal that fell through. Parker wants to trade up, not split up, so wise up.
Another thing the usapian protagonist posters miss.
Any fragmentation will not fall along east West lines, but much more likely fall allong fleet/destination lines, in a building of a larger, stonger LCC.
i.e. the West ain't going to Republic, while the east merges with American. Much more likely, the 190s could end up at Republic, the older east fleet aircraft like the 737s and 767s would go away, with some of the route structure traded away to appease the anti-trust crowd, and the remainder of the airline joins a large partner to compete on the Delta/United scale.
Oh, then we would have a seniority integration based on McCaskill-Bond using the Nic as the LCC system seniority list.