USAirways has few fans in Southwestern Pennsylvania, but the recent move by the U.S. Justice Department to block the airline’s planned merger with American Airlines ought to provoke some sympathy or at least raise questions of fairness.

It’s true that the downgrading of Pittsburgh International Airport from hub status by USAirways hurt the airport’s finances. And the reduction in flight options at the Pittsburgh airport is a handicap in economic development, given that business travelers like lots of direct flight options. And as USAirways slashed flights options it also took thousands of jobs out of the region. The airline’s plan to merge, as its major competitors have already done, is an effort to survive in a tough market.

The Justice Deparment wants to block the merger because it says the combination of USAirways and American, which will create the world’s largest airline, would be anticompetitive and travelers might face higher ticket prices.

While it’s true that the proposed merger would further consolidate the industry into a handful of very large airlines, the Justice Department did not block United Airlines absorbing Continental or Delta merging with Northwest.

It was clear with those big mergers that the airline industry was consolidating to increase efficiencies and reduce costs — to survive. Did federal officials not expect the remaining, unmerged airlines to seek partnerships?

The action against USAirways and American Airlines, the Texas-based carrier that views the merger as the best path out of bankruptcy, looks unfair — considering that USAirways’ and American’s competitors were allowed to merge just a few years ago.

The airline industry has long been a competitive battlefield, with the big carriers recording $58 billion in cumulative losses between 2001 and 2009. The United/Continental and Delta/Northwest mergers only made the competition tougher for USAirways and American.

And while American is trying to emerge from bankruptcy, it was the last of the major airlines to seek bankruptcy protection, which has been used as a way to cut legacy costs and redo contracts with employees. Its competitors, meaning United and Delta, went through bankruptcy earlier, and they emerged more financially competitive as a result.

Just like General Motors, the older or so-called legacy airlines faced higher cost structures and often more uncooperative unions than the newer airlines, such as Southwest Airlines, Jet Blue and Airtran. The legacy carriers saw bankrutcy and mergers as the way to compete with the new players in the industry.

Many industry observers believe that the survival of American, which deserves credit for trying to avoid the bankruptcy path taken by its competitors, depends on the merger with USAirways.

USAirways and American compete on about 1,000 routes and a merger would leave those routes vulnerable to price gouging. The best solution might be an agreement that shifts or swaps landing rights on those routes between USAirways and American with other carriers to encourage competition and keep ticket prices lower.

There should be some agreement to allow the merger to go forward while encouraging competition. To simply block the merger, while other, similar mergers have been allowed is simply unfair.