WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers railing against the proposed combination of Northwest and Delta say the deal will decrease competition and lead to higher airfares. But Congress has little power to stop a transaction that antitrust experts expect to be approved this year.
The Justice Department, which can block the deal if it determines competition will be hurt, said it is "interested" in looking at the airlines' proposal.
"We will look at the competitive effects of the transaction and how it would affect consumers," Justice Department spokeswoman Gina Talamona said Tuesday.
The airlines said they want to complete the deal by the end of the year, which would be during the merger-friendly Bush administration. Talamona declined to provide a timetable for the Justice Department review.
While little economic efficiencies are likely to gained other than easing ticket price hikes, Darren Bush, an associate professor at the University of Houston Law Center who worked in the Justice Department's antitrust division from 1998 to 2001, said the deal will "certainly be approved" by the business-friendly Bush administration.
Michael Waxman, an antitrust expert and professor at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, agreed but said one area antitrust investigators could home in on would be a combined Delta-Northwest's dominance in Wisconsin's largest city. Both carriers fly there, and Northwest has a stake in the company that owns a third carrier serving the region, Midwest Airlines. |
