By Doug Cameron Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
The consolidation of the U.S. airline industry continued Wednesday as two of the largest regional carriers announced plans to combine.
SkyWest Inc. (SKYW) agreed to pay $133 million in cash for ExpressJet Holdings Inc. (XJT) in a move that marries the commuter operations of merger partners Continental Airlines Inc. (CAL) and UAL Corp.'s (UAUA) United Airlines.
The enlarged airline would have 696 planes and handle 50 million passengers a year on some 4,000 daily flights.
The U.S. network airlines have sold or spun off almost all of their regional business, subcontracting the flying to operators like SkyWest, which plans to combine ExpressJet with the Atlantic Southeast Airlines business it acquired from Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) in 2005.
