OPINION:
Consumers will have fewer choices when booking travel for the holidays. Spirit Airlines declared bankruptcy Monday as the entirely predictable consequence of the administration’s decision to block JetBlue from buying the struggling low-cost carrier.
President Biden’s minions did a victory dance in March after convincing a federal judge in Massachusetts that forcing Spirit to remain an independent airline would keep prices low — never mind the massive debt the company had accumulated.
“The Justice Department proved in court that a merger between JetBlue and Spirit would have caused tens of millions of travelers to face higher fares and fewer choices,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at the time. “We will continue to vigorously enforce the nation’s antitrust laws.”
Now consumers face higher fares and fewer choices because the Florida-based company known for bright yellow planes and viral videos of occasionally rowdy passengers will have its fate decided by the courts.
“To those dedicated customers of Spirit, this one’s for you,” U.S. District Judge William Young wrote as he sided with Mr. Garland.
But it was really one for the nation’s four major airlines: American, Delta, United and Southwest. These giants account for 80% of U.S. air travel, and they haven’t seen a true competitor in decades. JetBlue was going to pay $3.8 billion to gain access to Spirit’s 215 jets, 3,561 pilots, 6,208 flight attendants and 685 mechanics.
JetBlue’s and Spirit’s assets would have been combined to create a legitimate fifth player that could have disrupted an overly complacent market. That, not government micromanagement, is what would have resulted in lower prices.
The union representing flight attendants recognized the deal’s long-term benefits. “AFA-CWA has experienced eight airline mergers in the past ten years, but this is the first it has enthusiastically supported,” union representatives wrote in court filings.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings will allow Spirit to attempt a restructuring. But even if the airline survives, it will do so in a weakened state. The loss-leading fares are likely to go away.
By the time the dust settles, only a hollow shell will remain. Spirit pilots have been furiously flogging their resumes to other companies in a desperate attempt avoid being the last ones out the door.
President-elect Donald Trump can’t return to the White House fast enough to restore common sense to federal antitrust enforcement. If anything needs scrutiny, it’s not a comparatively paltry $3.8 billion merger; it’s the trillion-dollar monopolies the technology companies have created and abused.
Google has no peer when it comes to serving as a portal for finding information online. The $2.1 trillion company has been caught injecting its left-wing bias into everything it creates in a bid to manipulate the outcome of elections. Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft have also demonstrated bad citizenship in their own way.
Meta has been caught censoring conservatives at the request of the Biden-Harris administration. Microsoft injects political bias into widgets on its ubiquitous desktop operating system.
Ideally, the best way to deal with bias is to defend the ability of competitors to enter the market. When Parler emerged as an alternative to Silicon Valley’s social media platforms, it quickly attracted millions of users. Seeing the threat, Apple and Google banned the Parler app from their smartphone ecosystems. Amazon then pulled Parler’s access to its web hosting service.
That is what anticompetitive behavior looks like. It’s not two small airlines combining forces to take on the big ones.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.