From Reuters:
For travelers, the question of whether to let American Airlines and US Airways merge into the world's largest carrier may boil down to this: pay more and get more, or pay less and get less…Jan Brueckner, a professor of economics at the University of California, Irvine who studies airlines, took issue with the view that fares will go up under a merger. "Our work shows that legacy mergers don't generate large fare effects," Brueckner said. "The benefits of mergers – larger networks, greater ease in going places – probably dominate in determining the outcome." Brueckner, an American Airlines frequent flyer, said he was excited that the American merger would offer new destinations. "I was looking forward to my airline being the world's biggest and getting me to more places that I need to go, especially overseas," he said.

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