Comment urges the agencies to follow the facts of each case to correctly assess competitive effects.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Transportation (DOT) launched a joint public inquiry to solicit comments from the public on airline travel competition. In the last few years, the DOJ has scrutinized three significant airline deals, two of which were abandoned after successful challenges by the DOJ.
- United States of America et al. v. JetBlue Airways Corporation and Spirit Airlines Inc.
- U.S. and Plaintiff States v. American Airlines Group Inc. and JetBlue Airways Corp.
- Alaska Airlines/Hawaiian Airlines Merger
Cornerstone Research supported economic experts and provided economic analysis for all three of these deals; for the DOJ in the first two cases, and for the merging parties in the last case. The economic analysis in all three of these cases followed the facts, and these cases serve to illustrate our broader contention that, whether a merger, joint venture, or other action, one should not over-generalize and instead must follow the facts of each case to correctly assess competitive effects. In their submitted comment, authors Christopher V. Lau, Ana McDowall, and Andrew Sfekas discuss several factors below that are likely to be important in competitive effects analysis for airlines.
San Francisco 
