Scott Kirby has officially walked United Airlines away from the M&A table – and torched a popular Wall Street theory about what he might do next.
Speaking at a Bernstein conference in New York on Wednesday, Kirby said United would not pursue airline mergers “for any time I can see in the foreseeable future.” It ends weeks of speculation that followed reports he had floated a combination with American Airlines to government officials, including President Donald Trump.
Kirby also directly rejected a popular theory that the outreach to American was designed to make a smaller acquisition – potentially JetBlue – appear more acceptable to regulators. “It’s just idiotic, I just don’t understand it at all, but that was definitely not the plan,” the United CEO said.
A tie-up between United and American would have created the largest airline in the world by fleet, capacity, and revenue. It also would likely have faced one of the most signific