United CEO brought the merger proposal to the White House, which considered it last fall.

united airlines Chief Executive Officer Scott Kirby proposed a merger with the airline to the Trump administration this year, and Kirby has been considering the possibility of merging with the airline since last fall, according to people familiar with the matter.

On Monday, Bloomberg News reported that Kirby floated the idea of ​​a partnership. american airlines to the White House in February. Some aviation analysts and experts dismissed the possibility of the merger creating the world’s largest airline, saying the regulatory hurdles were too high. United Airlines and American Airlines declined to comment on the report.

A combination of this scale has never been attempted in the United States, but due to a wave of industry restructuring that began about 20 years ago, American, United, delta airlines and southwest airlines It holds approximately 80% of the domestic market share.

But United Airlines’ Mr. Kirby said the next step for U.S. airlines is finding ways to better compete on the world stage.

“Size will help” the U.S. compete on outbound flights, he said on an episode of the Stratechery podcast in January.

“We have some customers who fly United almost all the time, some who fly Delta most of the time, but it’s so fragmented that if they’re going to the Middle East, they fly Emirates,” he said. “As we get bigger and can offer more services to these customers, it probably makes more sense for them to use us when they go to the Middle East.”

U.S. airlines have spent years complaining about unfair government subsidies received by some Middle Eastern airlines. However, U.S. airlines have partnered with some of these airlines recently, with United Airlines partnering with Emirates, American Airlines partnering with Qatar Airways, and Delta Air Lines forming a strategic partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Airways in 2024.