The DOJ proposes March 2014:
http://aviationblog.dallasnews.com/2...airlines.html/
The proposed merger of American Airlines and US Airways, which would create the world’s largest airline, presents a substantial threat to competition in air travel in local markets throughout the United States and will likely result in hundreds of millions of dollars in harm to consumers annually. All this is at a time when both American and US Airways are reporting record earnings and American is set (absent the merger) to embark on a period of procompetitive expansion. Given what is at stake, this Court should allow both sides a full opportunity to develop the relevant evidence in discovery and to present that evidence at trial. See, e.g., FTC v. Whole Foods Market, Inc., 548 F.3d 1028, 1041 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (Brown, J.) (explaining, in a government merger challenge, that the district court should take “whatever time it needed to consider the [] evidence fully”). Defendants’ attempt to rush this matter to a trial on the merits in fewer than 75 days following the initial Scheduling Conference creates the very real risk that a challenge to a $14 billion merger—in dollar terms one of the largest merger challenges ever adjudicated—will be resolved on less than an appropriate record.
Antitrust cases typically involve a host of “complicated legal, factual and technical (particularly economic) questions” and therefore require “extensive discovery.” Manual For Complex Litigation (Fourth) § 30 (2004). Plaintiffs’ proposed trial-ready date of March 3, 2014, with trial starting thereafter at the Court’s convenience, would leave four months for party and non-party document discovery and fact depositions, a month for expert reports and depositions, and then a month for pretrial motions and briefs. This schedule, while expeditious for a case of this magnitude, seeks to ensure that the Court will have an appropriate record.