“Each year, 24/7 Wall St. identifies 10 important American brands that we predict will disappear within a year. This year’s list reflects the brutally competitive nature of certain industries and the reason why companies cannot afford to fall behind in efficiency, innovation or financing.

“American Airlines will disappear in 2013 because of its inefficiency. It was the premier carrier in the United States for almost 30 years — even surviving through periods when most other carriers went bankrupt. However, it lost its critical advantage of scale when Northwest merged with Delta (NYSE: DAL) and Continental merged with United (NYSE: UAL). Within two years, American became a medium-sized carrier.

“This year we continue to take a methodical approach in deciding which brands to include on our list of brands that will disappear. The major criteria are:

1) a rapid fall-off in sales and steep losses;
2) disclosures by the parent of the brand that it might go out of business;
3) rapidly rising costs that are extremely unlikely to be recouped through higher prices;
4) companies that are sold;
5) companies that go into bankruptcy;
6) companies that have lost the great majority of their customers; or
7) operations with rapidly withering market share.

“Each of brands on the list suffers from one or more of these problems. Each of the 10 will be gone, based on our definitions, within 18 months.

“This is 24/7 Wall St.’s 10 brands that will disappear in 2013.” Click here to read the 24/7 Wall St. article in full and to see read about each of the companies on the list.