American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told a federal judge Monday that the carrier was hindered in markets like New York and Boston because of the headstart that Delta and others had as blockbuster mergers shrunk the industry over the last two decades.
Isom, who testified in the Justice Department’s antitrust trial against a partnership between American Airlines and JetBlue, used the argument to defend against the federal government’s allegations of colluding to raise prices and reduce competition in the Northeast.
It’s a chicken-and-egg argument that airlines have used for more than two decades to justify mergers.
