The Department of Justice is opposing the Aloha-Hawaiian request
for temporary antitrust immunity to coordinate a new joint schedule
on interisland routes. Aloha and Hawaiian asked the DOT for
immunity through Oct. 1, 2003, to coordinate and reduce capacity on
the routes (
TravelAge West, Sept. 2).
The DOJ, however, urged the DOT to reject the application
because the coordinated capacity reduction “will result in serious
harm to consumers through higher fares and poorer service in some
of the most heavily traveled city pairs in the U.S.”
The DOJ also concluded that there has been “no showing that such
collusion on capacity is necessary to preserve air service in the
interisland markets.”
The DOJ acknowledged that interisland traffic has declined
during the past several years, and took another hit from the
post-Sept. 11 decline in air travel. But the DOJ said the law on
which the airlines are relying to receive antitrust immunity was
meant only to protect against the “complete loss” of service, and
“the available evidence shows that neither [carrier] is in imminent
danger of failing” or pulling out of the interisland routes.
