Fair Merger Rules in Europe?

In Houston's George Bush Airport - IAH - the dominance of CO is pretty awesome - 85%. There are few fortress hubs at airports in the world as good as this one. In the US market there are several that can be seen - DL in CVG, NW in DTW and MSP, AA in DFW etc etc.

In Europe the dominance can be seen at CDG (AF) and in Germany both FRA and MUC have LH.

Interestingly from the graphic - you can see what happens if we look at the combination of the top 2 carriers at key airports in Europe. One thing this chart does not show is the dominance that occurs when you add an alliance to the mix. Thus adding all the Star Alliance players in Germany would add significantly to the lift power of LH in FRA and MUC.

The core of the EU's argument against the RyanAer merger was Dublin dominance. However the catchment area for Dublin is but a mere 1/25th of the catchment area for Frankfurt.

So if the EU (Mr Tajani) is going to allow mergers of the size that BA (IB) LH (OS, SN, etc) has embarked on - he needs a different lens.

I hate the idea of mergers and acquisitions of this size and type. But if these current batch are to be allowed then surely FR has a case for EI?

Let me know what you think

Cheers