Holder Demands Airlines Dump Assets to Complete Merger

At key airports

American Airlines and US Airways Group Inc. will have to shed assets at key airports across the country if they want to settle the U.S. lawsuit seeking to block their proposed merger, Attorney General Eric Holder said.

The airlines and the Justice Department are in settlement talks over the lawsuit even as the government is prepared to go to trial to block the merger if the talks aren't successful, Holder said today.

"What we have tried to focus on is to make sure that any resolution in this case necessarily includes divestitures of facilities at key constrained airports throughout the United States," Holder said at a press conference in Washington.