"It could easily push weaker airlines over the edge at great cost fo consumers."

And it also offers clues about how weaker and smaller airlines have adapted to survive.

But two weak airlines do not make a strong one.

The debacle among the weaker airlines is producing easy pickings for America's big three.

He has contended that American's fare-simplification strategy put into effect in early April was an attempt to drive weaker airlines out of business.

Pan Am, another very weak airline, lost $268 million on revenues of $3 billion for the first nine months of the year.

The survival of weaker airlines like Pan Am is increasingly threatened.

He said the proposal would produce "a very heavily indebted, financially weak airline with severely limited growth potential."

When one weak airline offers a kamikazi fare, the others flying the same route are forced to follow suit.

The strong shall survive and the strong will pick off what's left of the weak airlines.