Originally Posted by
bocastephen
Let’s see how the DOJ weighs in on this - hopefully the answer is no and the merger is blocked. There needs to be a blanket ban on all airline mergers and some working plans to bust up a few of the prior mergers.
I think the unwinding of the AA/B6 merger gives us some hope. This merger would decimate price competition for the Hawaiian market.
I don’t see anticompetitive issues there.
All three legacy network carriers + WN are already there. HNL isn’t slot-controlled.
B6 and F9 could both serve any of the island airports from their West Coast focus cities or DEN.
(I’m assuming the Spirit merger happens)
So I’m not sure how this is particularly anticompetitive.
If we wound the clock back to before narrowbody twins served mainland-HI routes, I might have different concerns. But the entry barriers now are incredibly low and I see smooth sailing from a regulatory perspective.