United CEO says it doesn’t want to be world’s largest airline, but size still matters
Photo Credit: United CEO Jeff Smisek believes those seatback TVs will be gone one day as passengers stream video on their own mobile devices using ever-more-powerful Wi-Fi. United Airlines
Skift Take
By saying that it would be very tough for low cost carriers to compete, United's Smisek is almost making the antitrust argument that the legacy carriers have grown too large for the public good.
What does United Airlines CEO Jeff Smisek really think about a combined American Airlines-US Airways being poised to leap ahead of Delta and United, numbers one and two, respectively, as the world's largest airline?
We may never know, but publicly, at least, Smisek says United-Continental Holdings is smaller than the two airlines were three years ago because "capacity discipline has been very, very good for this business," and United plans to shrink the airline further.
"You will see that we have actually shrunk our airline and wi
