Are purchased domain names a sign that US Airways and American Airlines are merging? Last Friday, the same day
American Airlines filed a bankruptcy court extension, it was reported that either American Airlines or U.S. Airways purchased multiple domain names that indicate this is the case.

Given they were registered with DNStinations (owned by MarkMonitor), suggest these were not cyber squatter registrations.

Purchased Domain Names

Several domain names were purchased this past Friday.

  • american-usairways.com, .net, and .org
  • americanairlinesusairways.com, .net, and .org
  • americanusairways.net (the .com was registered by someone else in 2010)
  • usairways-american.com, .net, and .org
  • usairwaysamerican.com, .net, and .org
  • usairwaysamericanairlines.com, .net, and .org
  • usandaa.com, .net, and .org
  • aadvantageofus.com, .net, and .org
  • advantageofus.com, .net, and .org
  • oneworldoneairline.com, .net, and .org

Interestingly enough, I don’t see the word Dividend (as in Dividend Miles) anywhere in the domain names list.

Bottom Line

These registrations appear to be made either US Airways or American Airlines and not by a cyber squatter. While this is still wild speculation, if the purchases were made by either company, it shows they are entertaining the thought of a merger.

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  • WarmNuts said,

    Interesting!

  • The Weekly Flyer said,

    Looks like Wallstreet Journal is now reporting IS Airways purchased the domains.

  • WarmNuts said,

    Way to beat the Journal to the story.

  • The Weekly Flyer said,

    Thanks. You can read the WSJ article here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304537904577277863461792028.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

    I also noticed this juicy nugget, if US Airways purchased the OneworldOneairline.com domain, I think it is pretty telling that they would then leave Star Alliance. It is a no brainer anyway, there is no way StarAlliance would scoop AA given the obvious antitrust issues.

  • AS said,

    This is not uncommon. US Airways has said they are considering the possibility of an acquisition. It is normal procedure for them to conduct extensive patent and IP searches against possible company names. Registering domains seems like a logical thing to do as well. It doesn’t mean anything is going to happen, it just means they are taking steps to protect their brand names, web presence, etc. in case they decide to do a deal.

  • AS said,

    Duh I just read the WSJ article. Never mind, they said it better than I did.

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