The US airline industry is going through a period of consolidation through mergers between leading airlines. A number of recent mergers have been approved by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) based on the presence of Southwest Airlines in merger-affected markets. In doing so, the DOJ makes a key assumption that Southwest is unresponsive to the reduced competition when its competitors merge. We find that Southwest raised fares more in markets where Delta/Northwest and US/America-West used to operate jointly between 2005-2010. However, Southwest's fares either decreased or rose by less if facing direct or adjacent competition from a low-cost carrier (LCC). Furthermore, Southwest is now merging with AirTran Airways, its biggest LCC competitor. This implies that the DOJ should not rely on Southwest Airlines as a post-merger deterrent to fare increases. / Graduation date: 2012
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/29774 |
| Date | 22 May 2012 |
| Creators | bin Salam, Najmus Sakib |
| Contributors | McMullen, Starr |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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