Airline tickets have been rising in cost and one reason why is antitrust enforcement that has outlawed airline mergers of smaller carriers.

Regular Hotline readers know that we railed against the Biden Administration’s inexplicable veto of a merger between the faltering Spirit and JetBlue airlines. The new carrier would have had a market share of just 9%. Since then, Spirit has been thrown into bankruptcy and has given up half its fleet.

Now, former Delta and Northwest CEO Richard Anderson says Justice’s denial of most airline mergers “backfired” and led to a market that has discouraged the entry into the market of low-cost carriers.

“It’s ultimately antitrust that, while meant to protect low cost flying, wound up disadvantaging low cost flying,” says travel analyst Gary Leff, who works for George Mason’s Mercatus Center. The losers are the very passengers that the pointy-headed bureaucrats at Justice claim they are trying to protect.