Alaska Airlines closed its acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines nearly 18 months ago, but a lawsuit is still tryingto unwind the deal – it was revived on appeala nd the plaintiffs are now seeking a restraining order that would preserve Hawaiian as a standalone airline.
Yoshimoto et al. v. Alaska Airlines, Inc., et al. is a private Clayton Act suit filed by passengers that initially tried to stop Alaska Air Group’s acquisition of Hawaiian.
The deal closed September 18, 2024 following DOT approval in exchange for several commitments that run for six years.
- Maintain minimum capacity on each route where the two airlines overlapped with nonstop service and where there was only one or fewer other competitors.
- Maintain existing interline agreements with other U.S. airlines and on existing terms.
- Not to enter into agreements at Honolulu airport that exclude or discriminate against new entrants or smaller competitors.
- Improve Hawaiian’s Customer Service Plan to match Alaska’s more generous policies on things like compensation, rebooking, and family seating.
- Better benefits for military families like free checked bags and change waivers.
- Maintain Hawaiian islands capacity.
- Frequent flyer program commitments.
In the original complaint, the plaintiffs sought to block the merger. Now they want the deal unwound, with Alaska gaining “over 40% capacity share for Hawai‘i–U.S. mainland routes.”
The Clayton Act allows for private injunctive relief when a merger may substantial lessen competition, tending to create a monopoly, and the suit assets this in Hawaii – U.S. mainland, interisland Hawaii, and Hawaii – Pacific. As a result, they claim airfares will rise.
Alaska moved to dismiss on standing, failure to plead a plausible relevant market, failure to plausibly allege anticompetitive effects even in the proposed markets. The district court dismissed for lack of Article III standing, characterizing the lawsuit’s allegations as harms to the general public and not specific, concrete injuries to individual plaintiffs.
However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the plaintiffs didn’t even allege an intention to purchase an airline ticket in the future – but the district court should have let the plaintiffs cure this defect, refiling with specific travel plans. So now they can just say ‘I wanted to buy a non-stop Honolulu – Austin flight but Alaska killed that route’? It was the first one they went to in order to grab a widebody aircraft.
- Plaintiffs now get to go back and document real changes to fares and routes after the merger. They’ll argue that integration is making the merger increasingly irreversible, so without immediate relief the court cannot restore Hawaiian as an independent competitor later.
- Alaska will argue that changes to fares, routes, and other policies are ordinary course of business for an airline, not reduced competition from the merger, and the specific commitments made to the federal government mitigate competitive concerns. Besides, you don’t impose a restraining order when monetary damanges can compensate for harms. And divestiture wouldn’t even help – Hawaiian was a troubled carrier without the merger.
Under the Ninth Circuit ruling, plaintiffs should be able to gain standing. But they have to demonstrate a real link between higher prices and reduced competition from the merger (not just that they paid more for a ticket). And Alaska has already made substantive commitments to the federal government that address the most plausible concerns in the case. I see almost no way a court orders a restraining order blocking further integration or unwinding integration. But they’re in a better position to extract a cash settlement (a ‘strike suit’ or shakedown).
Bwahahahaha! What did these clowns think, that M & A’s are always a GOOD thing for the consumers?
Actually, out of recent mergers, this one seems to have been the smoothest.
What arrogant stupid people thinking what they want is all that matters…really.
What Steve said and more. Simple fact is if Alaska/Hawaiian continues with what they are doing the market will be far better served than if Hawaiian had been left alone. Yes they are making changes from HA’s model that was floundering and about to shrink, but the end result of this merger is going to be both Hawaiian and Alaska combined will offer the traveling public way more than the two by themselves could have.
Airline merger is never good for consumers. America West, Northwest, Continental, AirTran… Several mergers happened. It is very different these days. It will never go back and never benefit consumers.
The most interesting thing to us frequent fliers is the commitment that was extracted in exchange for allowing the merger regarding frequent flyer devaluation. I’d like to hear your opinion as to whether they’ve complied with the requirements.
Lawsuit happy Americans and ambulance chasing lawyers willing to oblige. Legal system is so screwed up in this country.
@Steve – the requirements were actually pretty de minimis as-written, I do not think they’ve been violated
If the plaintiffs actually prevail with rulings by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, appeals to the Supreme Court may cause reversal if certiorari is granted since that has happened many times before.
There should probably be a court above the circuit courts and below the Supreme Court since there are so many decisions that are appealed to the Supreme Court and so few of those decisions granted certiorari. Two centuries ago the burden on the Supreme Court wasn’t anywhere near what it is now. Maybe build a court of judges appointed by the Supreme Court judges themselves with each one able to appoint say five judges to this sub Supreme Court. Each decision would have nine judges, one appointed by each Supreme Court judge. Have these as fixed groups. Then the Supreme Court would have a better idea of what to leave at those decisions and which to give certiorari.
Pipe dream, especially under this regime (pro-super-rich/corporation, anti-consumer/worker.)
What these knuckleheads don’t understand is that Alaska saved Hawaiian. That’s right, Hawaiian was going bankrupt with one foot already in the grave. Even with Alaska’s help last year, Hawaiian lost $500,000 per day. That’s PER DAY. So stop your crying and be thankful for Alaska.
@ Steve — OMG, you sound like Tim Dunn. Alaska has screwed over its customers. They have not maintained the value of their FF program as promised. They are just another back-stabbing corporation.
Government should take over all airlines, because corporations are all anti consumer and anti worker. These corporations can’t be trusted. In fact, this should be done across all industries. Problem solved. I don’t know why anyone hasn’t thought of or tried such a system before. It would surely work spectacularly.
@ 1990bot gets it.
Airline mergers usually don’t work out best for consumers. You always deal with increased prices less competition. And always the larger airline that takes over the smaller one guts their frequent flyer program. I’ve worked at Airlines forever this is what happens every time. The larger carrier thinks it’s too expensive to keep the smaller airline that they took over intact. Although they will always tell you that up front that oh that’s exactly what they’re going to do they’re going to keep the smaller carrier in this case Hawaiian intact blah blah blah I can guarantee you that won’t be the end result it never is it will just be Alaska now flying all of the routes there will be no Hawaiian Livery no Hawaiian anything but they won’t do it at first they’ll just gradually wean everybody into it.
So now hindsight is 20/20 i think we legitimately can say Aloha and ATA were basically destabilized by 9/11 then thrown the double whammy of rising fuel prices, while AA DL UA’s merged entities were purely 9/11 induced resulting in greater pacific leverage. As for Hawaiian Airlines, Covid was the knife in that back that was twisted at the same time Virgin, Southwest, and Alaska made increasing headway upon the Islands in the pre and post years of that complication.
Personally i think in some ways Alaska would not mind spinning off Hawaiian now they got the 787’s, but truthfully, it would not be wise for either, as that would reduce their competitive strength against the bit 3 as a whole.
@1990 you do know that Trump can’t do anything about the merger right? The final Executive approval was given in 2024 while Biden was still in office. The only hope to stop this merger is in the courts. The Federal Government isn’t even a party to this lawsuit.
Gene,
Steve speaks the truth that many don’t want to hear.
HA was on death’s door.
Doesn’t change the fact that AS was desperate to grow in size in the western US and won’t ever be able to overcome the lead weight that AS is – but they will raise fares and cut service in order to try to make ends meet.
It isn’t a surprise that DL, AS’ primary competitor at SEA, just announced its largest schedule to Hawaii including new flights from the Eastern US. When fares get high enough, new competition comes in.
After the week’s events in Mexico, a whole lot of people will shell out money to go to Hawaii over Mexico
oh, and the lawsuit won’t go anywhere
This is all so stupid and stems from so many people’s ignorance of economics. We are a capitalistic society and businesses are not run as charities. Now some will not like this reality, but 100 years of history tells us that socialism is SO much worse for humanity. The purpose of antitrust law is to guard against the onr REAL flaw in capitalism: the potential for real monopoly. Like if somebody somehow was able to gain control over the vast majority of flights to Hawaii, they could potentially amass more profits and harm society. Obviously, that is beyond farfetched here. There are nearly countless ways to fly to Hawaii. Corporate mergers always have winners and losers, and that’s completely normal and fine in a capitalist society. Like how many astute readers here benefited greatly playing the Atmos credit card game? The merger has been FANTASTIC for these clever individuals.
DOT approved exchanges for six years. What happens when time is up. The game ends and the airlines will be known as Alaska Air……no Hawaiian. The previous corporation just pocket the millions and adios kanaka air. Blame this politicians who approved the merger. NO ALOHA!
Everyone who keeps crying about this merger is crying for the sake of wanting things to never change. HA would have gone bankrupt again as has been described countless times and a third time would have made them toxic for creditors. Alaska didn’t need HA to get 787s, they could have gotten slots from Boeing easily given their hometown relationship, and we aren’t talking 50 or 80 787s, we are taking less than 20 so, spare me that theory. I have been flying Hawaiian for decades, since I was born and grew up in the islands and later Alaska when i lived in Alaska. As much as Hawaiian is a part of life in Hawaii, it was never considered the most amazing, incredible, magical sacred cow that it seems to have become since the merger. Do we not remember its previos two bankruptcies and near collapses??? It’s disastrous expansions and contractions using worn out DC-8s, leased DC-10s they could not afford to put gas in to name a few past debacle.
I have had mileage plan and Hawaiian miles credit cards for 30+ years and I indeed played the Atmos game and came out quite nicely. I kept my Barclays Hawaiian MC, just to see what happens when we have to change to BofH in the future, anyway, everyone who is crying about their Hawaiian miles or Alaska miles being devalued must just be reading about other people thinking they are being devalued because I have found quite the opposite. If you just ignored everything, didn’t convert, didn’t get a new Atmos card, didn’t log into your Hawaiian miles account, never used your Hawaiian or Alaska miles, well I guess you might think you are getting ripped off, I don’t know. If you can achieve any Atmos status, and it isn’t hard, you get more benefits than you did previously with either of the other programs so, I don’t know what the problem is. I have continued to have perfectly good service on Hawaiian in the last year and a half, I fly a lot and I pay attention. I also fly a lot on Delta and have diamonds medallion, if you want to talk about useless miles, let’s talk Delta. Over there it’s all dollars spent and what you get with high status. At Alaska/ Hawaiian you get the lowest miles for award tickets than any of the big 3, period. You just have to work each airline for what you want and what it’s strength is.
actually, after 20 years of flying Hawaiian I have switched over to Southwest Airlines after their assigned seating changes. Their planes seem to be cleaner, newer, they have Wi-Fi between the islands and charging ports at the seats. And on average, I save $150 round-trip between Kona and Honolulu. The only thing I lost was access to their lounge, which is nothing to be impressed with.
This is comical. Hawaiian has been ripping locals off forever. They took advantage of Aloha’s demise and absolutely screwed over families traveling for Merry Monarch and other important events. Good riddance kooks.
It remains strange that one of the largest US carriers is now named after two states that are not even on the mainland, where most of their flights are. They should have a contest to rename it to avoid the inevitable corporate grey suit name, 1st Prize lifetime flights. And let the public vote to avoid another Atmos.
@1990bot — LOL. *beep boop*
Kincaid,
this. right. here.
AS is so attached to its “heritage” that it renders itself meaningless in the marketplace.
and your point is even more accurate watching an Alaska or Hawaiian widebody pull up to a gate in Europe or Asia for a flight to Seattle.
@Tim Dunn — What’s up with Delta amping up Hawaii flights? BOS, MSP, DTW, etc. Press release says “Lei-ing down”… y’all going to ‘war’ with AS?
@1990: You do know that it was the Autopen’s regime that approved the merger, right? If anything, today’s D’s are far more in the pockets of corporate overlords than the R’s are. How else would they constantly have far more campaign cash available to run ads in pretty much every major swing race in the nation?
@stogieguy7 — Oof. Let’s please distinguish between the benign tumors that are those corporate Democrats verses the stage-4 cancerous corruption that is what has become of the Republican Party under #45/47. Yes, I’m all for reforms of the Democratic Party, especially if it’s to adopt actual Progressive platforms and leadership. Some of you libertarians seemed to like FTC Chair Khan’s approach; in the next era, could we compromise in that direction, finally hold corporate power to account, benefitting workers and consumers alike? Or are we just keep serving PDFs at the top?
That’s what this is. A shakedown for an out of court settlement. The plaintiffs will get a couple hundred dollars, if that, and the attorneys will make a tidy sum for minimal work.
HAWAIIAN WAS FUNCTIONALLY BBANKRUPT AND WAS ON TRACK TO BE LIQUIDATED. ALASKA SAVED THEM FROM FECKLESS MISMANAGEMENT.
@Matthew — Have you met occasional VFTW commenter and notorious abuser of ALL-CAPS, @Derek McGillicuddy?
I have been shopping ORD-HNL-ORD. It is eye-opening, for F/J how much cheaper AS/HA is, compared to American.
We’re probably going to fly American to Honolulu, simply because the schedule works much better than AS/HA.
But, the return on AS via Seattle, flying J on 787 out of Honolulu, is roughly half of AA’s fare flying J on a 787 between HNL and DFW.
Not gonna happen. It’s too far gone to unwind. I could see a court potentially ordering some sort of a firewall between Alaska and Traditional Hawaiian operations, as might have happened when Continental was looking into a merger with Delta several decades back, but event that eventuality is highly dubious. The fact that the Biden Administration approved this merger makes it especially hard to undo – that administration was notoriously anti-airline merger; just look at the Spirit merger debacles. If that administration approved of this merger, then the plaintiffs have a hard road to travel.
1990
I think it is not just about cutting off AS’ integration w/ HA but also about the large number of Pratt powered 777As that are out of service and may not be available by the winter even if UA tries to talk otherwise.
and, yes, Chuck, AS is trying to exist as the bottom feeder which means that other airlines can cut them off w/ more capacity esp. from the eastern US
@Tim Dunn — Alrighty then. Well, I’d happily ‘Lei-down’ again with Delta to HNL if they’d ever open up RUC space on that JFK flight. Epic redemption if one can pull it off. Some bloggers supposedly did back in the day, but I think the days of such outsized deals may be over.
This is Hawaii in a nutshell. Always trying to stop time and go back to a perceived better time. Always thinking they’re owed something and blaming others when they don’t get it. Just like the “vacation rentals are pricing out locals” movement. Perpetuated by the hotel lobby, ignores the real reasons housing is not affordable, and places blame on the easy scapegoat.
Only Tim could attempt to re-direct a conversation about HA and AS into some trash talk about UA. Jealous much?
Only Gene would think that responding to specific questions requires tip toeing around the obvious issues which include UA’s 777 grounding issue – which Gary has discussed.
and let’s also not forget that WN is part of this discussion as well. It was WN’s entrance to the Hawaii market including the intrastate market that was a major downside for HA’s finances. Add in that HA is now flying redeyes from Hawaii to the mainland which significantly improves their connectivity across the US and you have lots of movement in the Hawaii market.
and Maui is beginning to see demand return on top of Mexico issues and perhaps oversaturation of demand to southern Europe.
lots of moving parts and AS is still trying to prove that it can be profitable on a year round basis; even before the HA merger, AS was very quick from a revenue and profit perspective in the winter.
This is strange. Wouldn’t Hawaiian be in financial trouble if it were to go it alone? People are bitching about something that has yet to be seen? Alaska won’t necessarily raise fares. How much money will Alaska lose if the merger is called off?
@ Gene:
“@ Steve — OMG, you sound like Tim Dunn. Alaska has screwed over its customers. They have not maintained the value of their FF program as promised. They are just another back-stabbing corporation.”
You mean like UA?
Hawaiian was bankrupt l. Without this acquisition all those Hawaiian employees would have lost their jobs. Hawaiian would be just gone. How is that a good thing?
That’s absurd! Have they filed suit against American (US AIR), Delta (Western), United (Continental)?! Alaska has acquired Hawaiian while completely staying away from product integration into a single brand name as the other three mergers I referenced.
It would be horrendously devastating to Hawaiian (and the entire group) to detach from AAG, they have demonstrated complete integrity in combining operations WITH NO DEGRADATION to either brands! They’ve demonstrated their unique skill at aviation management with Hawaiian while expanding their three brand’s interests scope in the process
I can tell you as a weekly inter island traveler for many years it wasn’t Alaska that did HA in but SW. As soon as SW started inter island flights fares decreased by almost 50%. They got favorable terms from all the local politicians and squeezed out our beloved regionals like Aloha Air, Mokulele has scaled way back. I was paying 75-80% the cost of west coast fares to LA, PDX. They got greedy.
Alaska has no idea the true meaning of “aloha”. The website is atrocious and very difficult to log in let alone navigate. They want Asia routes and we are the stepping stone.
@1990bot: your plan was tried from 1920 to 1991. It was called the USSR. Did not work. Ever been to the DMV?
Yeah, let’s do that.
Lawyers have absolutely no shame.
@Tim Dunn–concerning DL’s addition of mote nonstops to HI from the East Coast, good luck. Those are very long (longer than to most European destinations) thin routes. HA actually had a monopoly on BOS-HNL before DL joined the fray–and again after DL tucked its tail between its legs and abandoned the route. It still wasn’t sufficiently profitable. It’s worth noting that DL is only returning now because HA no longer flies that route–and it has taken them a long time to decide to do so after HA gave it up.
With regard to AS and HA branding, you seem to be applying the old adage “the bigger the lie and the more often you tell it, the greater the probability it will be believed.”. No one in Europe or Asia cares what an airline is called if they provide good service to somewhere they want to go at a reasonable price, offer good connections, have good alliances, etc., etc. You (and to be fair, others) keep making the same invalid argument over and over again. Opine all you want but the proof will come soon enough once we get more data as to how these new flights perform.