Lots of cynicism on this board, not entirely unwarranted.
However there are legitimate business reasons for wanted to merge the two companies. Mangers love to talk about synergies, and the resultant savings, which may very well be swallowed up my merger costs in the short term. In the long term American is suffering from a weak domestic structure particularly in the southeast, a crippling load of debt, and a wholly owned regional carrier with the highest costs in the industry. Their go it alone bankruptcy plan is basically shrink into irrelevancy and compete with ultra low cost carriers. A merger brings a short term infusion of cash, a much stronger domestic network and some new international routes. Doing it in bankruptcy still allows the shedding of some bad debt and old plane leases, and the ability to whipsaw the regional feed in such a way as to reduce costs (bad for AE, sorry guys). It puts their network on parity with the other two big players, Delta and United. Alone they have no chance to compete except by shrinking and retreating to their core markets, a losing strategy in the long run when the other two are raking in large profits with large networks and eventually would be able to muscle in.
