United CEO brushes off airline mergers after American rejection

RIO DE JANEIRO — United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said he doesn’t expect more airline consolidation in the U.S. and he’s not interested in pursuing a merger for his airline after American Airlines rejected the idea of a combination earlier this year.

“United’s not going to do a deal just to do a deal,” Kirby told reporters Sunday on the sidelines at the International Air Transport Association’s annual meeting.

When asked about the wave of consolidation that has brought together Allegiant and Sun Country this year, and Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines in 2024, Kirby said further combination opportunities look unlikely: “There’s nothing,” he said.

“It’s a lot harder,” he said. “I’ve been … one of the primary architects of consolidation in the United States. I’ve been around a lot of these deals. It’s hard, and you shouldn’t do deals that don’t make economic sense.”

Kirby has repeatedly dismissed the idea of buying its new partner, JetBlue Airways.

But earlier this year Kirby discussed the possibility of combining with American, where Kirby used to work, floating the idea to the Trump administration, CNBC previously reported.

Kirby later said in a statement that he had hoped a combined airline would compete with big foreign rivals, though some analysts said the tie-up would face insurmountable regulatory hurdles.

A merger “requires support from everyone,” Kirby told reporters at the IATA conference. “We would need the unions, we’d need the customers, the shareholders, the regulators and the management team.”

He said, however, regarding American’s management team, “we don’t have that, clearly, so we can’t get it done without them.”

Delta Air Lines President Peter Carter similarly told CNBC on Saturday that he doesn’t see a merger or acquisition in Delta’s future. He said the carrier’s longtime strategy has been partnerships and joint ventures, which include those in South Korea, Mexico and Europe.

Because the U.S. domestic air travel market is so mature, international travel is the future, Carter said. He added he wants to take on United, the second most-profitable airline in the U.S., in the lucrative trans-Pacific market.