#Jetblue is trying to buy #SpiritAirlines. It's a terrible idea. Consolidation in the US aviation industry has resulted in higher fares, less reliable planes, spiraling junk-fees, and brutal conditions for flight- and ground-crews. The four remaining US major airlines, who gobbled their rivals, are three times more profitable than their European counterparts:
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/12/they-put-it-in-writing/#that-was-then
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That's great news if you're an airline shareholder. It's terrible news if you're hunting for your lost bags, or if you're a flight attendant or pilot being squeezed, or if you're being hit for billions in covid bailouts - or if you're one of *million Americans* who were stranded during Christmas week by the failure of #SouthwestAirlines' IT systems, which use duct-tape and wishful thinking to hold together the IT systems of all the airlines #SWA bought:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/16/for-petes-sake/#unfair-and-deceptive
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The collapse of competition in the US airline industry is the result of a deliberate policy, the "#ConsumerWelfare" theory of #antitrust, which says that #monopolies are "efficient" and good for the public. It's a theory that took root under #Reagan, and was reaffirmed and expanded by every president, R or D, since.
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Until now. For the first time in two generations, the Biden administration has taken up the neglected, noble art of #trustbusting, blocking mergers and promising to break up the mergers we've already seen, through enforcers like #JonathanKanter at the DoJ Antitrust Division and #LinaKhan at the #FTC:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby
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President Biden’s July 9 Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy is a highly technical, 72-part, fine-grained memo on how to address the ways market concentration harms our lives as workers, citizens, consumers, and beyond. To a casual reader, this may seem like a dry bit...
Which is bad news for the proposed Jetblue/Spirit merger. Last week, the #DoJ filed suit to block the merger, joined by the AGs from #NY, #MA and #DC.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.254267/gov.uscourts.mad.254267.1.0.pdf
Notably, Pete Buttigieg - who has been historically shy of using his prodigious powers as the boss of a large agency - will also block the merger:
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Spirit's shares are in the toilet. Writing in his BIG newsletter, #MattStoller explains why shareholders are bolting for the doors: the case against the Jetblue/Spirit merger is *incredibly* strong. A slam-dunk, even:
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/an-end-to-airline-consolidation
Spirit, after all, is America's most famous budget airline. That means that it attracts fliers by undercutting the Big Four.
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Cory Doctorow
John Mark 
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