United CEO brought merger idea to White House but considered it last fall

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby raised the idea for an airline merger with the Trump administration this year, according to people familiar with the matter, though he has been considering a potential airline deal since last fall.

On Monday, Bloomberg News reported that Kirby floated the idea of a tie-up with American Airlines to the White House in February. Some airline analysts and experts brushed off the possibility of that combination, which would create the world’s biggest airline, saying the regulatory hurdles would be too high to clear. United and American declined to comment on the report.

A combination of that size hasn’t been attempted in the U.S., though waves of industry consolidation starting about two decades ago have left American, United, Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines in control of about 80% of domestic market share.

But United’s Kirby has said the next phase for U.S. carriers is figuring out how to better compete on a global stage.

“Size would help” compete on U.S. outbound flights, he told the Stratechery podcast on an episode that aired in January.

“We have customers that fly United almost all the time or they fly Delta, but when they go to the Middle East, it’s fragmented enough that they fly on Emirates,” he said. “If we’re bigger and have more offerings for those customers, possibly, it makes it more rational for them to fly us when they go to the Middle East.”

U.S. airlines spent years complaining about what they called unfair government subsidies that some Middle East carriers received. But U.S. carriers have recently teamed up with some of those airlines: United now has a partnership with Emirates, American has one with Qatar Airways and Delta signed a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Air in 2024.