DALLAS (AP) — American Airlines and US Airways expected to spend this week cruising toward completion of their huge merger, a deal to create the world’s biggest airline worth $14 billion on paper.
Instead, they were stunned Tuesday when the federal government and six states sued to block the deal, saying it would hurt competition and cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars a year in higher fares and extra fees.
Antitrust regulators had done little to interfere with three other big airline mergers in the past five years, so they were not expected to stand in the way of American and US Airways. But this latest deal would leave four airlines controlling more than 80 percent of the U.S. air-travel market.
“By further reducing the number of legacy airlines and aligning the economic incentives of those that remain, the merger of US Airways and American would make it easier for the remaining airlines to cooperate, rather than compete, on price and service,” the lawsuit said.
The Justice Department turned the words of US Airways leaders against them. The 56-page complaint filed in federal district court in Washington, D.C., was peppered with quotes from internal emails, investor presentations and public comments in which top executives noted that previous mergers had helped lead to higher fares and higher fees to check a bag or change a ticket.
Shares of both companies plunged, and executives vowed to challenge the lawsuit.
“We will fight them,” declared US Airways CEO Doug Parker, who would run the combined company.
Paul Denis, a Washington antitrust lawyer hired by US Airways, said Tuesday would be the Justice Department’s “best day” in the matter.
“They got to hold their press conference. Now they’ve got to try their case in court,” he said.
Tom Horton, CEO of American Airlines parent AMR Corp., said the companies had spent months trying to convince the Justice Department that the merger would help customers and boost competition by creating a tough new rival to larger airlines United and Delta.
AMR has been operating under bankruptcy protection since November 2011. It has cut labor costs, renegotiated aircraft and other leases and earned $220 million profit in the second quarter — its first profit in the April-to-June period in six years. It is forging ahead with an order for hundreds of new airplanes.
The company had expected the highlight of this week to be a Thursday hearing in which a federal bankruptcy court judge would approve its reorganization plan, including the merger. That would be one of the final steps before AMR could exit Chapter 11 protection by the end of September.
The hearing is likely to go ahead, and the judge could approve AMR’s turnaround plan on the condition that the Justice Department’s opposition is resolved. But AMR probably won’t come out of bankruptcy for at least a few more months while it fights the lawsuit, officials at the companies said.
American and US Airways had been so confident of a quick merger that they had already named executives for the combined company, which was to be based at AMR’s headquarters in Fort Worth and called American Airlines Group Inc. Executives at Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways have been house-hunting in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
The lawsuit may put some of those real estate deals on hold. Daniel McKenzie, an analyst for Buckingham Research Group, said the merger went from a 99-percent probability to around 50 percent.
It’s possible that the lawsuit will never go to trial. Analysts said the Justice Department could be seeking more time and leverage to squeeze concessions from the companies, such as giving up some of their precious takeoff and landing slots at Reagan National Airport, which would create room for new competitors at the busy airport across the Potomac River from Washington.
At a news conference, Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer said the Justice Department was always prepared to discuss a settlement but that it preferred this time to seek an injunction to block the deal.
“As we look at the market today, it’s not functioning as competitively as it ought to be,” Baer said, and “if this deal goes through, it’s going to be much worse.”
The Justice Department, which was joined in the lawsuit by the attorneys general of six states and the District of Columbia, said the merger would cause “substantial harm” to consumers by leading to higher fares and fees.
Government lawyers cited examples in which US Airways operates one-stop flights that undercut nonstop flights by American and other rivals by hundreds of dollars. After the merger, they said, US Airways would drop that practice, pushing fares higher.