President Joe Biden’s Justice Department has successfully had two airline linkups halted in court in recent months. That doesn’t necessarily spell doom for Alaska Air’s plan to buy Hawaiian Airlines. U.S. District Court Judge William Young on Tuesday sided with the Justice Department and blocked JetBlue Airways’ $3.8b attempted takeover of Spirit Airlines, saying that the elimination of the budget carrier known for rock-bottom fares would “harm cost-conscious travelers” who rely on those cheap tickets. The decision immediately sparked questions of whether an Alaska-Hawaiian combination would suffer a similar fate in an antitrust lawsuit. Shares of Hawaiian plunged in the minutes after the ruling was handed down, though they ultimately recovered. “We’d be lying to ourselves if we thought the probability of a successful merger had not been lowered following [Tuesday’s] ruling,” Deutsche Bank airline analyst Michael Linenberg wrote in a note Wednesday. Yet the pitfalls that brought down the Spirit-JetBlue deal may offer clues into how Alaska and Hawaiian could pass muster with regulators, or in court. The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about whether it plans to challenge Alaska and Hawaiian’s proposed deal. “The court in the JetBlue case was plainly concerned that this merger was eliminating a low-price carrier,” said Herbert Hovenkamp, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School and a specialist in antitrust law.<br/>
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An American Airlines airplane skidded off an icy runway while landing at Rochester International Airport Thursday, coming to a stop in snowy grass just off the roadway. Fifty passengers and three crew members were on board the American Eagle Flight 5811 from Philadelphia, operated by Piedmont Airlines, said American Airlines in a statement. Fortunately, no one was injured during the bumpy landing. American Airlines said that incident happened as the aircraft "exited the taxiway while in transit to the terminal due to snowy airfield conditions" after landing safely at the Frederick Douglass Greater Rochester International Airport around 4 p.m. "Safety is our top priority, and we apologize to our customers for their experience," said the airlines in their statement. "Everyone on board deplaned safely and was transported to the terminal by bus.”<br/>
Finnair said on Friday a strike planned by several Finnish trade unions on Feb. 1-2 would have a "significant impact" on the airline's operations and result in flight cancellations. Finnish unions have protested in recent months against the right-wing government's plan to favour local work agreements over centralised bargains, limit political strikes and make it easier to terminate work contracts. "The Government is intending to diminish employee security, weaken the applicability of collective agreements and limit employees' right to strike," said interim president Hakon Ekstrom of one of the striking unions, JHL, in a statement.<br/>
British Airways and Iberia owner IAG plans to invest E6b in Spain over the next five years, the office of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Friday after he met with IAG's CE Luis Gallego. That is an increase from E5b invested in the past five years, the premier's office added in a statement, and is meant to "advance in the transformation process of its Spanish airlines".<br/>
Qantas will restart direct flights between Singapore and Darwin after an 18-year hiatus, deploying the Embraer E190 on the route from December. The Australian carrier will operate five times weekly between the two cities from 9 December, before increasing frequencies to daily flights from March 2025. Singapore is Qantas’s second international destination served by the E190, with Timor Leste capital Dili being the first in 2022. The Oneworld carrier last operated to Singapore from Darwin in 2006, and had been connecting the two cities since the 1930s. The E190s, which are configured with 97 seats in two classes, are being deployed as part of an operating agreement between Qantas and regional operator Alliance Airlines. Separately, Chinese operator Hainan Airlines has launched new flights between Haikou and Ho Chi Minh city. The twice-weekly Haikou-Ho Chi Minh city flights began operations on 15 January, with Hainan deploying its Boeing 737-800s on the route. <br/>