{"id":41719,"date":"2022-03-14T03:58:23","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T09:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/democrats-say-spirit-frontier-merger-could-boost-airfares\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:02:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:02:57","slug":"democrats-say-spirit-frontier-merger-could-boost-airfares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/democrats-say-spirit-frontier-merger-could-boost-airfares\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrats say Spirit-Frontier merger could boost airfares"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A line of Spirit Airlines jets sit on the tarmac at the Orlando International Airport in 2020. Several congressional Democrats are warning that the proposed combination of Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines would reduce competition among low-cost carriers and drive up fares during a time of inflation. (AP Photo\/Chris O'Meara, File)<\/span>Chris O<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON \u2013 Several congressional Democrats are warning that the proposed combination of Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines would reduce competition among low-cost carriers and drive up fares during a time of inflation.<\/p>\n

The lawmakers said previous mergers have hurt consumers and workers, and if Frontier and Spirit ever drop their budget-carrier business model, the industry \u201cwould lose an important check on prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, D-Vt., along with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and five others urged Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the head of the Justice Department\u2019s antitrust division to review the merger closely for potential violations of antitrust law, and consider acting to stop it.<\/p>\n

The federal agencies declined to comment Friday beyond saying they had received the letter.<\/p>\n

The Biden administration has signaled that it will scrutinize mergers more closely to promote competition. In September, the Justice Department sued to block a partnership <\/a>in which American Airlines and JetBlue Airways agreed to work together in the Northeast. The Trump administration had allowed that deal to go through.<\/p>\n

Frontier and Spirit announced last month that they would combine<\/a> in a $2.9 billion deal to create the nation\u2019s fifth-largest airline by passenger-carrying capacity. Denver-based Frontier would have a controlling share.<\/p>\n

They say their deal would help consumers by creating a more powerful low-cost competitor to American, Delta, United and Southwest, which together control about 80% of the U.S. air-travel market.<\/p>\n

The lawmakers, however, said \u201cSpirit and Frontier are already the two least-liked airlines in America,\u201d and a merger could make the customer experience worse because travelers who get mistreated would have no close alternatives among discount carriers.<\/p>\n

\"In
In thisfile photo, Frontier Airlines jetliners sit stacked up at gates along the A concourse at Denver International Airport. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski, File)<\/span>David Zalubowski<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A line of Spirit Airlines jets sit on the tarmac at the Orlando International Airport in 2020. Several congressional Democrats are warning that the proposed combination of Frontier Airlines and Spirit Airlines would reduce competition among low-cost carriers and drive up fares during a time of inflation. (AP Photo\/Chris O'Meara, File)Chris O WASHINGTON \u2013 Several […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[916,915,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-41719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-air-transport","tag-durango-la-plata-county-airport","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85073,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41719\/revisions\/85073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41719"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=41719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}