# Why are US airlines owned by a parent company? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 11, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-us-airlines-owned-by-a-parent-company/456165 "2008-07-11T18:22:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-us-airlines-owned-by-a-parent-company/456165/1 "2008-07-11T18:22:11Z")
Why are many US airlines owned by a parent company? United - UAL Corp American AMR Corp Northwest Airlines, Inc. - Northwest Airlines Corporation. Is there some accounting reason behind it? ---
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-us-airlines-owned-by-a-parent-company/456165/2 "2008-07-11T18:36:35Z")
Yup. Many airlines also offer peripheral services such as ground services, freight and cargo operations, maintenance and logistics, etc. which are all structured under their own corporations as well. I just finished a class on airline structure and business practices, and it laid out that most major airlines are structured this way so that a “holdings corporation” is really the parent. The business reasons behind it are legal and technical (and my texts didn’t really get into that too much), but I suspect it has to do with loss control, i.e. the floundering freight operations of one airline doesn’t threaten the rest of the airline as a whole. I’ll have to look into those texts again tonght. I did a fairly good report on Evergreen International, which has one branch that has a museum underneath the parent holding company. Tripler You don’t want your museum to bring down the **Desert Nomad Inc.** conglomerate, do you? ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-us-airlines-owned-by-a-parent-company/456165/3 "2008-07-11T21:46:39Z")
Actually **Desert Nomad Inc.** is a subsidiary of **Desert Nomad Worldwide Enterprises** which maintains its global headquarters and secret hideout in Pacmanistan. 😉