Thats a long way to kick the can for a company that’s struggling to stay competitive and put pilots in class.

DOJ sued Alaska/VA. They settled. DOT has never tried to block the certificate transfer. IMO the biggest threat to the merger. As cargo said, that might get all the way to the Supreme Court. They certainly have the authority, but with a conservative Supreme Court, they might decide they’re overreaching. It’s gonna be a long process.

I was surprised to see the DOT is moving to try to block. Is that even something that can be fought? There is no precedent for fighting a DOT ruling like this.

It’s wild how politically motivated this is. The way this is being treated, you’d think DAL and UAL were merging 🙄

I think the DOT getting involved is proof that the DOJ knows they have no case. Biden administration is just throwing anything they can at the merger.

That has to be the only real reason. This might be a great way to have an airline merge come all the way to the Supreme Court, if the DOT is really going to block.

Can appeal it and work it up to the Supreme Court, which is unlikely to have a favorable view of arbitrary government edicts regardless of if it’s allowed or not (for better or worse). The government is politically motivated, but the Supreme Court is too.

It’s probably just mayor Pete just trying to take some of the heat off of himself. Train derailments, maternity leave, vacations, private jets. It really seems like the dot has all of their ducks in a row.

So how big of a deal with the DOT chiming in they plan on blocking this does it make compared to when we thought it was only the DOJ initially? Just curious if this changes anything compared to what we originally expected with the DOJ only?

The argument for/against the merger is still the same, just more opponents on the other side. The only change I expect is another 4-6 months added onto the timeframe to get this completed and probably run it through the Supreme Court.

The argument against two small carriers merging to become the 5th largest carrier isn't going to hold water in the long term. If this is truly the case then the government needs to unravel DL/NW, CO/UA, AA/US, WN/AT, VX/AS.

If I stand corrected, is it not that airfare are calculated in the inflation reports? Hence why the Biden administration has been keen with blocking this merger? To be honest, I was expecting a DOJ counter but adding the DOT seriously adds a big hurdle. Part of me believes UA or DL is behind this mess. I am on the spirit side and delta has been hiring our people like we've never seen before our January alpa reported 15 DL 12 UA 9 AA 6 SW departures. 7 net gain for that month. Considering how DL and NK are complete opposite baffles me. Just food for though.