I really don't see how this will save any money.
1. There is excess capacity in the airline business.
2. There are inefficient aircraft being flown.
3. A large percentage of the current passenger strata will simply not fly if they have to pay anywhere near a sustainable fare.
4. The end result of the merger will be a company about the size of Delta now, with a few more asian routes. MSP, MEM and CVG will cease to be hubs. The DC-9's will go away. Most CRJ's will go away. The end result will be a businessman's airline.
You know, my father flew for NWA from 1968-1999, retiring as a 747-200 captain and check airman.
I have an old first-class menu from around 1972. On the back is the old NWA route structure. They served, maybe, 10 cities in the U.S., all of them feeding to these massive trunk lines across the pacific, where the network was much more extensive.
No, you couldn't fly NWA from Pensacola to Dayton back then. But they were so in the black that they wrote checks for 747's, and owned most of the hotels they stayed in around the world.....