Merger of American and US Airways not good news for passengers

From next week, when American Airlines and US Airways merge to form the world's largest airline by revenues and by the number of passengers flown, the United States will have just three mega-airlines - American, Delta and United.

Of course, all the airlines boast of the benefits their mammoth size bring, such as more flights a day at more times to more cities in the country and the world, but it is hard for the long-suffering passenger to be happy at the other prospects of more intense oligopoly. Surely the US needs more competition and passengers need more choices.

Being the biggest, and with a tendency of all big companies to be bullies, the US carriers try to spread their pernicious practices to the rest of the world, so what happens today in America spreads to Europe tomorrow and to Asia the day after tomorrow.

It will not be easy, but it is time for passengers and consumer associations to push governments to look beyond narrow national borders in setting the terms and licences for airlines.

For a start, they could impose conditions on the oppressive contracts of carriage that airlines force passengers to agree to.

The US aviation and competition authorities have fallen on the job. In August, it looked as if the American-US Airways merger might be in trouble as the Justice Department moved to block it on grounds that it limited competition. Attorney General Eric Holder said: "The American people deserve better. This transaction would result in consumers paying the price - in higher airfares, higher fees and fewer choices."