PineappleXpres

Preparing to be sued or appease the feds and divest. Hmm……decisions, decisions. Could your intel be getting only part of the full picture and is running with partial info? Likely or else they are being criminally negligent.

ReluctantEskimo

Divestiture is not a surprise. If it is, you must be brand new to the industry. OneWorld is not going to survive this merger. It would mean that 1 alliance has 3 of 6 carriers that operate from the mainland to Hawaii.

And good riddance, to be honest. The alliance never manifested the route gains that were promised.

flysnoopy76

Will anyone be honestly surprised if the DOJ chooses to sue to the block the merger? I would have thought that eventuality was a given and it would come down to the court case. At least based on this administration’s position on mergers.

ReluctantEskimo

I disagree. Blocking the merger isn't a foregone conclusion. It all depends on what Alaska is willing to put on the altar to make sure that the market remains competitive.

rickair7777

I would not be surprised. I also wouldn't be surprised if they don't sue. I think the merger is reasonable, so it comes down to political optics which is a bit hard to predict... depends on which way the wind is gusting and what's in the news on a given day.

Even with a DOJ lawsuit I'd guess the merger has better odds than not of going through. Some of that depends on what AS is willing to give up to seal the deal. They won't be abdicating the entire SEA N terminal to breeze and avelo in order to make it happen though.

I'm planning my life as though it's going to happen. Some folks may want to consider whether they want to be a CA or an FO when the SLI goes down... need to decide soon.

PineappleXpres

Alaska will either comply or not. If they are unwilling, fighting it in court seems unlikely to be successful given the specific items the DOJ would reject.

If the DOJ blocks, then modifying the agreement makes more sense than actually trying to define what the merger looks like through the courts.

Any assumption of a block regardless of the specifics would be purely based on political/optic reasons. I’m not that cynical.

blackbox348

Are there three outcomes? Approve, Sue/Block, Divesture? Or is a divesture part of the lawsuit?

GoodJet

Why plan around something that hasn't been decided at the most basic level? It's all noise at this point. Everyone is guessing. When you're sitting in it and the paycheck has cleared you'll know.

Also:

There are no planned upgrades going forward for a long time. The issues with Boeing need to be resolved for hiring to begin. Then upgrades might commence. The snapshot could have been on the date the merger was announced. So it might not matter, depending on what is ultimately decided for our SLI. In addition to not even being presently available or discussed in the future, why upgrade and take a massive QOL hit for a metric that might have already been decided? The main reason that leaves were offered and reserves were not allowed to pick up was to prevent downgrades according to the MEC. Why and when would upgrades be offered?

The biggest milestone that will tell us a lot going forward is of course something that no one is talking about and we are in the last 30 days of time running out: FAA gives Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to address quality issues CNN Business

flysnoopy76

I don’t know about Hawaiian, but if you are at Alaska I don’t see the opportunity to upgrade coming anytime this year or maybe next, more likely, based on staffing, there will be captains downgraded. Yes, I read the last email from DM, but if it saves Alaska money to downgrade people, that is what they will do. I think at best, everyone is more or less stuck where they are for the foreseeable future.

PineappleXpres

Divesture is a condition of approval. Sue/block is a disregard for the DOJ conditions of approval.