How to merge airlines

To merge two airlines, first have the Merged Airline (whether existing or a new startup) buy all the aircraft from the airline being bought out/merged. If the Merged Airline doesn't have enough money, then once a few planes have been purchased from the old airline, it lease a plane back to it for all the cash on hand. Then the old airlines releases the plane back, causing the money to be transferred. The staying airline will have money again to keep purchasing airplanes. Keep doing this until all the aircraft are at the new airline. Finally, to transfer money, you will need to have the Merged Airline lease a plane for all the money that the old airline has and then releasing it back to the Merged Airline. Once the pilots transfer, you can then shutdown the old airline. You also might want to create the routes that the old airline has before shutting down by exporting the flightplans and then uploading them into the Merged Airline's flightplan database. To do this, see the other thread regarding mass upload of flightplans here.

As an example of how to do this

You have airline A buying out B...

If airline A has v$100 million in cash, and B has 20 aircraft that total are more than v$100 million combined, then A will buy all the aircraft possible with their money. Once that is gone, A will have to lease a plane to B for v$100 million, or however much B has in cash, then B will release the plane from lease letting it go back to A. Once that money gets transferred over, A can continue to buy B's aircraft. Once B's aircraft are all transfered over, then A will lease another aircraft to B for the total amount that B has in money. This will leave B with no money, no aircraft. Then you need to have the pilots quit airline B and apply to airline A. then once everything is over (aircraft, money, pilots, flights) have the CEO of B close down the airline and move to A. And there you go...