Alaska Well On Way to Merging With Hawaiian Airlines

With the US Department of Justice choosing not to challenge the proposal, Alaska Airlines has cleared perhaps its biggest hurdle in merging with Hawaiian Airlines.

   The $1 billion-dollar deal would create a better travel option, says Alaska

 According to MyNorthwest.com, the merger would preserve the brand identities of both carriers, which is very rare in the modern merger world. Usually in mergers, one company (usually the smaller entity) is absorbed as part of the larger company.

According to MyNorthwest:

"Alaska Air and Hawaiian Holdings, the parent company of Hawaiian Airlines, said in regulatory filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday that the review period for the Justice Department, which had already been extended several times, expired just after midnight.

The closing is still subject to approval from the Department of Transportation. Alaska and Hawaiian have been working with Transportation on lingering issues, according to the SEC filing."

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This decision differs from some recent ones made by the Biden Administration, which blocked JetBlue from buying Spirit Airlines and prevented JetBlue from creating a partnership with American Airlines for the Northeastern US.

Officials say Hawaiian Airlines, which depends heavily on tourism to Japan, has not recovered as well from the COVID Pandemic as other air carriers. The merger would add about 50 aircraft to the Alaska-Hawaiian Airlines fleet.