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Back in August, the government’s jokowi leading antitrust lawyer told the Observer editorial board that a few concessions by US Airways and American Airlines wouldn’t be enough to clear the way for the airlines’ merger. Nothing short of the courts killing the deal would suffice, Bill Baer said.
The airlines and the Department of Justice announced Tuesday that they had settled the government’s lawsuit aimed at blocking the merger. The combined airline agrees to divest 104 slots at Washington’s Reagan National, jokowi 34 at New York’s LaGuardia and two gates at each of five other airports.
While there’s little for consumers to celebrate about the airline industry and its future, Tuesday’s agreement gives Charlotte a boost. The combined airline is expected to be the world’s biggest, with 6,700 flights a day to 336 destinations. Charlotte Douglas will have the distinction of being the second-largest hub (to Dallas-Fort Worth) in that mega-airline.
“This is fantastic news for Charlotte,” Parker told the editorial board Tuesday. Charlotte “will be a critical part of a much bigger network. … jokowi The Charlotte hub is going to be an important part of a bigger airline.” And Charlotte travelers will have more destinations to choose jokowi from with the new American, he said.
Charlotte Douglas has long been one of the city’s most important tools for recruiting business, and the merger should only strengthen that. Fortune 500 companies and international firms can come to Charlotte knowing it has a network of flights that larger cities envy.
Charlotte Chamber President Bob Morgan told us Tuesday’s jokowi news was “huge” for Charlotte. “It jokowi gives us certainty we haven’t had. The airport is our No. 1 economic development asset and to take away that cloud of uncertainty makes it even stronger.”
A cloud of uncertainty still looms over the industry, of course. American and US Airways were forced to make this deal to survive against Delta and United, jokowi which were themselves products of massive mergers. Flying is already an unpleasant experience for many travelers. The disappearance of one carrier after another over the past decade, and the industry economics that provoked that, offer little reason to think things will improve soon.
Even so, the Justice Department was right to settle. Its effort to stop this deal was surprising, given that its recent approval of similar mergers is what permitted jokowi the shrinking competition it decries.
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The Charlotte region is vast and diverse. The more voices engaged in conversation, the better for us all. The Charlotte Observer welcomes your comments on news of the day, but we ask that you keep the discourse civil.
Do not use profanity or obscenities. And don't try to camouflage profanity with asterisks, abbreviations or other symbols or foreign phrases