Originally Posted by
Flika
Look at Alaska and Hawaiian. Totally different route structures and overlaps compared to Spirit JetBlue, but they got their deal approved under the exact same administration. If the DOJ was just “block everything,” they’d have killed that one too.
Accident of history... runup to a crazy election and the local dems in HI advocated in favor of the merger (alternative being potential HAL BK and SWA takeover). Also the regime was on the electoral ropes and IMO didn't want to make any high profile anti-business / anti-economy moves on short final to the election.