Originally Posted by
Mesabah
You don't know what the government will decide, neither do I, neither does DAL management. They aren't going to rock the boat when things are going so well. Furthermore, the people in Washington are already under enormous pressure to reduce fares.
There is no way they will force divesture of anything beyond the exact slots in question. Do you think that if DL brought more RJ flying in house that CHQ would then be able to own and sell DL routes to Europe or Japan, or be given a concourse in SEA? Of course not. The absolute worst case would be the rebidding of the exact number of slots in the specific airports in question, with maybe some of them being LCC welfare forced divestures. But that is the absolute worst case. It would not open the entire network up as a menu for other parties to pick and choose from as they saw fit.