Originally Posted by
AADFW
Great… let’s just keep the oligopoly going until it all turns in to a single domestic airline. Why bother with having antitrust laws at all?
This is probably one of the few cases where it makes sense. Prior to deregulation, the government used to allow airlines to merge when there were financial issues. This is one of those cases, since HA is hurting financially but provides a needed service to the state of Hawaii.
Many of the previous mergers involving the top airlines were just the "big getting bigger". In the early 80's, I predicted the one airline scenarie, called "AMAIR" (like AMTRAK).
