Transportation Secretary Says He’s Open To Airline Mergers — “Trump Loves To See Big Deals Happen”

There’s a lot of talk about airline mergers. JetBlue tried to buy Spirit and the Biden administration blocked it. Now Spirit is in its second bankruptcy and its viability as a standalone entity is in question. That lone makes the Trump administration likely open to further airline consolidation.

United’s Scott Kirby has openly salivated over JetBlue’s New York JFK slots, and would value a Florida hub given the airline’s lack of presence in the Southeast. However, he’s also said that this is dependent on price, he has a JetBlue partnership already (although without antitrust immunity), and has flagged integration as a huge distraction. He was part of the team that merged America West and US Airways and US Airways and American Airlines.

JetBlue itself is reportedly looking at the antitrust implications of selling itself potentially to United, Alaska, or Southwest.

Now Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy says he’s open to airline mergers, “President Trump loves to see big deals happen.”

Is there room for some mergers in the aviation industry? Yeah, I think there is.

…I’m going to wait and see is there a deal that’s brought to the table? How does it look, what impact does it have on competition, what is it going to do for the consumer and the pricing of the consumer? What does it do for us to be competitive globally, to make sure that we in America have the biggest and the best airlines competing around the world.

CNBC: There's growing chatter that one of the big four airlines could get even bigger and buy one of the smaller ones. Would you like to see that?

SEAN DUFFY: President Trump loves to see big deals happen. He'd have to review it. But I think there's room for some mergers in the… pic.twitter.com/LnpI4CUqDz

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 7, 2026

He talked about mergers of large airlines peeling off assets, and expressed concerns about competition, but said he’s look at it and the President would look at it.

While the Department of Transportation has the legal authority over international airline alliances and joint ventures seeking antitrust immunity, the Department of Justice has statutory authority to review domestic airline mergers. (The authority to exempt airline joint ventures from antitrust comes from the Airline Deregulatoin Act, which conferred the authority to sign off on price-fixing international tickets by the industry in much the same way that the Civil Aeronautics Board used to set domestic fares.)

• The Civil Aeronautics Board used to approve airline mergers
  
• This was sunset by the Airline Deregulation Act, and DOT inherited that authority.
  
• However merger review was moved to DOJ effective January 1, 1989.
  
• This transfer treated airlines closer to other industrys post-deregulation, and DOT had approved deals that DOJ opposed – in particular TWA/Ozark and Northwest/Republic both in 1986. (Congress saw DOT as too permissive.)

Secretary Duffy doesn’t have legal authority here, but would be included in conversations around any airline merger. However ‘legal authority’ also isn’t necessarily how decisions get made. Duffy was careful to frame this as President Trump’s decision. United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby has worked to pivot from ‘woke’ during the Biden administration to MAGA under Trump for this very obvious reason.

Meanwhile, the administrations Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust was ousted in February. That division currently has an acting head, Omeed Assefi.

It is with great sadness and abiding hope that I leave my role as AAG for Antitrust today. It was indeed the honor of a lifetime to serve in this role. Huge thanks to all who supported me this past year, most especially the men and women of @justiceatr

— Gail Slater (@gailaslater) February 12, 2026

Any decision on a major airline merger is likely to be made at the White House in any case.