All that is true, which is all the more reason that having the DOJ forbid the merger made no sense - if spirit was slowly dying, better to have it folded into a more competent airline (assuming they were willing), and keep most of the pilots, planes, staff, etc, working only hopefully more efficiently. Clearly whatever imagined monopolistic impact in the low end segment of the air travel market that was purportedly averted by the merger ban came to pass anyway since they’re gone now. When you have a company selling services at a loss and losing money, they’re artificially suppressing the fair price of the product and harming all the other market providers. It’s “dumping” when China does it with solar panels to drive the US companies out of business, but it’s just incompetence when a US company does it to the rest of the US market.
If you want a more detailed takedown of the Kahn antitrust regime under Biden, here you go.
Well, congratulations Judge Young. With Spirit’s demise, that low-fare option is gone. The big boys are likely to snap up Spirit’s planes, airport gates and other assets, and there will be less competition than if the merger had been allowed. JetBlue is also struggling these days. Judge Young owes those Spirit employees and the traveling public an apology, and so does Mr. Kanter.
Consolidating control in the major players make them more dominant and the market less competitive than if the smallest player got to gain that market share instead and became more significant. Right now the big 4 (delta, united, American, southwest) have about 20% share each and everyone else is fighting for scraps. JetBlue and Alaska are the next two down (around 4-5%) and both were trying to do mergers to help their position.
The consequence of spirit downsizing was that the majors got many of their routes and assets piecemeal, making them bigger and the smaller ones remaining on a worse position.
Still an exaggeration to blame the DOJ. Hindsight is 20/20. We can’t know what would have happened if the merger was approved. Maybe it would have led to JetBlue’s eventual demise and the same people would be blaming the DOJ and the judge for allowing the merger .
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