HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A short sentence in a press release sparked speculation that the U.S. Department of Justice might still object to the merger of Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines.
Shares of Hawaiian Holdings, HAL’s parent company, fell briefly on Thursday after business website Securing Alpha pointed out that Alaska Airlines had slightly rewritten its announcement that the company could close the deal because of a deadline.
This marked the end of a three-times extended deadline within which Alaska Airlines had agreed not to complete the deal while the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division reviewed the proposal.
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A sentence was added to the press release stating that the Justice Department’s review was “ongoing.”
The Justice Department never said it would finish its review — it said nothing at all, either before or after the 12:01 a.m. EDT deadline, which ended at 9:01 p.m. Monday at Alaska headquarters in Seattle and 6:01 p.m. in Honolulu. But airlines, Hawaii state officials and aviation industry reporters assumed the Justice Department was finished because it did not request another extension.
This was made clear in the documents submitted by both airlines to the US Securities & Exchange Commission on Tuesday. The deadline only affected actions by the airlines and did not restrict the Justice Department in any way.
Hawaiian stocks fell 2% on Thursday but then recovered.
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