00:00I think Scott Kirby is trying to sort of push his luck here, and he pitched this, as you said,
00:04to circles in Washington, not to anyone.
00:06He pitched it directly to President Donald Trump. That's what our reporting shows.
00:11There was a meeting in late February where he brought up this idea, interestingly, a couple of days before the
00:17war in Iran started,
00:19which really has put the aviation industry into a sense of crisis, given what it's done to fuel prices.
00:25So, if anything, that has only sort of intensified the need for something, at least in the minds of a
00:33lot of executives.
00:33Since then, we've had Kirby come out and say, this is an opportunity for us, the current state of the
00:40industry.
00:40We've had Ed Bastian at Delta say, we might see more consolidation.
00:44You have to remember that consolidation in the industry, and the industry as we know it now in the U
00:50.S., was built around consolidation.
00:51That always happens, and it accelerates during a time of crisis, and anyone you speak to in the industry right
00:57now will tell you that this is the moment.
01:00But, to your point, this is obviously a massive, audacious endeavor, and whether this is just Kirby sort of dreaming
01:07big and seeing how far he can push it,
01:10or whether it's something that's real, that's something we need to find out.
01:13Benny, do me a favor, compare and contrast the U.S. airline market with what we have in Europe,
01:20because I spent, you know, 10 glorious years living over there and taking, like, 30 euro flights to Ibiza,
01:27whereas here, you know, even on Spirit, to Austin I'm paying, like, 400, 500 bucks.
01:32Why is that?
01:36Well, I mean, in the U.S. you have the big four.
01:38You have Delta, you have United, American, and Southwest, and then you have sort of second division and third division
01:45type companies.
01:46And then you have some that are really struggling, Spirit, for instance.
01:50And the ultra-low-cost market in the U.S. in particular is in dire straits.
01:56There's no doubt about that.
01:57That is different over here in Europe.
01:58You also have sort of three big groups.
02:01You have Lufthansa, Air France, and the IAG group that includes British Airways.
02:07But then you have very solid companies like Ryanair, who have really sort of mopped up a lot of the
02:13regional market in Europe.
02:14So, to your point, those cheap flights that you were taking to the Mediterranean,
02:19you probably boarded a plane on Ryanair or on EasyJet.
02:22That is a market that is sort of solidified in the way that you don't have in the U.S.
02:27and that's where some of the opportunity lies.
02:29What's different in this case is that this is two of the biggest that would combine,
02:34and that's where a lot of the headaches come from.
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