Some airline mergers appear to have been successful. The 2005 acquisition by America West of US Airways, which created US Airways Group Inc., produced a carrier with the healthiest margin of unit profits over costs in the industry, according to SH&E, an airline consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass.
Through the third quarter of 2007, the difference between US Airways' unit revenue and costs -- a measure of financial health -- stood at an industry-high 1.78 cents per mile flown by paying customers, SH&E found. Only three other carriers, Northwest Airlines Corp., Delta and United had a margin of more than 1 cent per passenger mile in that time.
