Sen. Warren Asks Department Of Transportation To Block JetBlue’s Spirit Buy

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is requesting that the US Department of Justice heavily scrutinize JetBlue’s planned purchase of Spirit Airlines and ultimately block the combination.

Warren wrote a letter to the Transportation Dept. Secretary Pete Buttigieg asking that the agency to consider blocking the $3.8 billion purchase of Spirit. Although the Justice Department is the agency that is reviewing the deal, Warren argues that the DOT also can move to stop the deal.

The “DOT must make its own independent competition assessments and take its own actions accordingly without deferring to DOJ,” Warren wrote in the letter dated Thursday.

Warren argued that a combination of JetBlue and Spirit, a low cost carrier, would likely lead to higher fares for passengers.

The “DOT has the statutory authority to block mergers that it determines are inconsistent with the public interest at the agency level without having to go to court—a significant advantage over DOJ—and you have an enormous opportunity to protect consumers nationwide by using this authority aggressively,” Warren wrote in the letter.

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