In the ongoing buzz about airline industry mergers, one carrier in particular stands out–Delta. 
    
The question remains: Will Delta be the airline that sparks consolidation or sputters it? If the economy keeps heading south, airline investors will be hoping for the spark.
    
The company, which rejected a hostile bid by US Airways early this year, and was recently thought to be exploring a merger with United Airlines, is happy to fly solo, it’s CFO told Reuters on Thursday.

“When you look at consolidation, you have to look seriously at your stand-alone option,” Edward Bastian (pictured below) said at the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit in Washington. “We feel very comfortable that our stand-alone plan is viable.” 

Delta has denied it was in talks with United. Nevertheless, the company has hired advisors to help it explore strategic options, meaning in M&A terms that it is more or less on the block.  
     
As reported by Reuters’ Chris Reiter, mergers could be a way out of the industry’s looming troubles, but so far, it’s just talk.  Naturally, US Airways CEO Doug Parker thinks Delta is the catalyst that will turn that talk into action.
     
“Delta will be the trigger if they want to be,” said Parker, who engineered the 2005 merger of America West and US Airways. “When they decide to do something, that will be the trigger.”
 
He said Delta’s the likely trigger because US Airways and Northwest Airlines Corp are too small to kick start the process, while United is willing but has been unable to pull off a deal. Meanwhile, American Airlines parent AMR Corp and Continental Airlines Corp appear unwilling to initiate the process. 
 
Parker thinks that now is the time to merge, because a new presidential administration will only make anti-trust approval more difficult.

(With material from Chris Reiter and Kyle Peterson)

Photo. Delta CFO Edward Bastian. Reuters file