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Well, the U.S Justice Dept. cleared HP and US for HP's proposed buyout of US today allowing HP to move forward. The next step in this marriage or funeral is the approval by the ATSB who has laid out a billion dollars to both US and HP since 2001. All this is just as U.S sheds more of its assets to Republic Airlines to raise cash to keep operations going. We'll see how good of a CEO Doug Parker is if he can turn US's operations around or we'll watch the two crash land in Chap 7.
The key to the success or failure of this proposed merger is not the government approvals, but the makeup of the new management. The fewer execs from CCY (US HQ) come over to the new company, the more the odds of complete success. There is only one member of US mgt. who SHOULD go over, and I don't think she will.
As a board member of FFOCUS, formerly the Cockroaches, a customer and employee advocacy group, who has met with US management on a number of occasions, I can tell you that they could not organize a one car funeral. They take no responsibility for their failures, they are only good at blaming others. They have no clue how to run an airline, and they are anti customer and anti employee.
It will be interesting to see who stays and who goes, but I am not encouraged by the make up of the transition committee.
I do hope it works out though--the potential of full service with rational fares on that combined route network could be a BIG hit. Take it from someone who flies about 150K a year, 130 or so of which are on US!