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US Airways has made no secret of its interest in a merger with American Airlines, and now its gobbling up Internet domain names in case they do agree to combine.

A spokesman for US Airways Group Inc. confirmed Tuesday that the company registered several domain addresses that include the names of both airlines, including usairways-american.com and american-usairways.com.

The spokesman, Andrew Christie, said US Airways bought the domain names to prevent anyone else from buying them and using the names in a way that might negatively impact our brand.

He declined to comment about a possible bid for American.

US Airways has publicly disclosed that it hired advisers to weigh a bid for AMR Corp.s American Airlines, which filed for bankruptcy protection in November.

A spokesman for American Airlines, Bruce Hicks, said the airline knew nothing about the domain names. AP

Economy looks better to the Federal Reserve

The Federal Reserve sketched a mildly brighter view of the economy Tuesday after a burst of hiring since its last meeting in January. It took no further steps to aid the recovery and repeated its plan to keep short-term interest rates near zero through 2014.

After a one-day policy meeting, the Fed said unemployment should continue to decline gradually as the economy expands. It also noted that consumer spending and business investment have picked up.

And it took a more hopeful view of Europes debt crisis. Though the crisis still threatens the global economy, the danger has eased, the Fed said.

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Hoping to merge, airline collects domain names