Although the two events are not related in any physical sense, a synchronicity exists between the shutdown of northern European airspace for six days in mid-April and the proposed merger between United Airlines and Continental Airlines, announced a few weeks later. The former once again has shown the absolute vulnerability of the airline industry to events over which it cannot possibly have any control. The latter illustrates a natural, if perhaps unintentional, response to this condition: Create an airline that is too big to fail, because the consequences of such a failure would be a massive and sustained dislocation of the transportation system that would rebound on the political leaders judged to be in charge at the time.
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