Another Hurdle Cleared For Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines Merger

There’s still a lot of work to be done, but a potential merger between Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines cleared another hurdle.

The two carriers reached what is known as a timing agreement with the Department of Justice. This is part of the review process. 

That is, Hawaiian and Alaska are consenting to a stipulation which prevents the finalization of their merger. That final decision will be made by the DOJ, which reserves the right to veto the deal. The timing agreement means that the two airlines have complied with a request to provide further information about the proposed deal.

Alaska Airlines proposed last year to acquire Hawaiian for about $2 billion.

The merger comes in the wake of the proposed agreement between JetBlue Airways and Spirit Airlines, which was blocked by the Department of Justice in a lawsuit and later upheld by a federal judge. That deal has since been abandoned.

The Department of Justice and the federal judge both agreed that any deal between JetBlue and Spirit would violate antitrust laws. 

This potential merger between Hawaiian and Alaska still has to undergo further scrutiny and it remains to be seen whether it falls under the alleged bias by the Biden administration against big business.

But Alaska CEO Ben Minicucci said earlier that he believes this is a separate deal and that there is minimal overlap in routes and fare prices.

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