United will likely not pursue another large-scale acquisition after American Airlines rejected its overtures earlier this year, CEO Scott Kirby said Sunday.
“I think consolidation is unlikely for United,” Kirby told Reuters at the International Air Transport Association’s conference in Rio de Janeiro. “That doesn’t mean we won’t still be in the market to buy assets, but consolidation is a low probability.”
American said in April that it had no interest in merging with United after Bloomberg reported that Kirby pitched the idea of a linkup to President Donald Trump two months earlier. Kirby later acknowledged that he pursued talks with American but said the carrier declined to engage.
The proposal shocked the aviation industry, as it would have brought together two of the country’s largest commercial airlines and given the combined company a market share of just over 34%, a level of dominance not seen by any U.S. carrier in years. Analysts predicted that the U.S. Justice Department would reject the tie-up as anticompetitive, citing regulators’ decisions on much smaller attempted mergers over the past several years.
Kirby pushed back, arguing in an April 27 statement that the merger could have created more high-paying unionized jobs, hypercharged the U.S. aircraft manufacturing industry, and delivered greater value to customers. He also suggested that regulators would not have automatically dismissed the linkup in light of potential benefits to customers and worker groups.
Kirby again defended the deal to Reuters on Sunday but said it became untenable after American’s leadership called the proposal anticompetitive.
He also denied discussing with the White House the possibility of giving the U.S. government a stake in the combined company.
Neither the Justice Department nor the Transportation Department ever weighed in on the potential United-American merger, as a final deal was never filed. Trump said in April that he did not support it, and cited competition and consumer prices as the reason.
