Justice Department to United Airlines: you cannot have a monopoly in Newark

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Justice Department to United Airlines: you cannot have a monopoly in Newark

Jana Kasperkevic in New York
Tuesday 10 November 2015 19.10 GMT

The US Justice Department has sued to prevent United Airlines from acquiring an additional 24 flight slots at Newark Liberty international airport, in a move that could potentially endanger the airline’s expansion plans.

The lawsuit filed on Tuesday claims that both United and Delta, which currently owns the slots, violated US antitrust laws – Delta by attempting to sell the slots, and United by trying to buy them to “maintain and enhance its monopoly position at Newark”.

The slots in question are takeoff and landing authorizations issued by the Federal Aviation Administration.

“United has the lion’s share of the slots at Newark. There are 1,233 slots allocated at Newark. United holds 902 of them. That’s 73%,” said assistant attorney general Bill Baer. “United controls over 10 times more slots than its closest competitor. No other airline has more than 70 slots.”

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/10/justice-department-sues-united-airlines-newark-airport-monopoly

[elleng]

1. GOOD TO HEAR the anti-trust division is doing SOMETHING!

[Fred Sanders]

2. How much in lobbying fees did it take to get private airlines in control of public airport parking

for the private corporation owned airplanes?

Cue the corporate and corporate media outrage over this attempt at equality and justice for consumers as written into whatever law there is left regulating the industry.

This is Obama taking the gloves off after unending obstruction and now ever so clear racism of the the GOP for 6 years....what he is doing may not make the headlines dominated by buzzwords, but what he is doing is enforcing and creating good policy as best he can.