Will US Airways, American merger drive up costs?

Potential airline price increases are being debated as the US Airways and American Airlines merger creates the world’s largest airline operator.

The new airline's value is $11 billion and includes a pool of 1,000 jets and almost 100,000 workers, according to an article on The Daily Ticker.

With four airline companies controlling about 85 percent of domestic air traffic, travel writer Barbara Peterson said previous similar circumstances created outsourced customer service, capacity cuts, overcrowded planes and service cuts.

In 2012, U.S. airline carriers attempted to raise domestic flight costs 15 times. Worldwide airline fee revenue also increased 11 percent. Jeff Macke, a Yahoo Finance writer, said he doesn’t think the merger will increase the price of plane tickets even as it leads to less competition in the industry.

“Ticket prices don’t go higher because there are only four carriers,” Macke told The Daily Ticker. “Price gouging is not going to happen.”

Macke said consumers should be more worried about reduction in flights to and from smaller airline hubs.

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