Delta and Northwest airlines have hired high-powered lobbyists, including two former senators, to argue their case before Congress to create the world’s biggest airline.
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The two carriers, which want to combine into a single, mega-airline called Delta to reduce costs, announced a proposed merger last week. Executives immediately went on the road to sell the idea to newspaper editorial boards and airline employees in major hubs like Atlanta, Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Salt Lake City.
This week, flanked by high-profile lobbyists, they take their case to the nation’s capitol where they are expected to face questions from competitors, consumers and union representatives.
Among those lined up on behalf of the airlines are two of the best-known former lawmakers in the lobbying world — Trent Lott of Mississippi, who until recently was the second highest-ranking Republican senator, and his new lobbying partner, former Democratic Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana.
Also signed on is Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, which boasts numerous former Capitol Hill staffers and Bush administration officials.
Delta’s top executives told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they have also hired R. Hewitt Pate, who ran the anti-trust division at the U.S. Justice Department from 2003 to 2005, to deal with questions from regulators. Pate now heads the “global competition” practice for the Hunton & Williams law firm.
In addition, they have brought in leading anti-trust lawyer Donald L. Flexner of the firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP. Flexner was featured as the lawyer to call “to survive life-or-death antitrust matters” in the April 2007, Inside Counsel magazine.
The mission of the expanded team, who join Delta’s veteran in-house lobbyist Donald Yohe, is to persuade the Justice Department that the merged airlines will not be a monopoly. They are expected to argue that the two companies serve different regions.
The House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust task force is slated to look at the proposed merger in a hearing at 10 a.m. Thursday. The Senate Judiciary subcommittee that deals with antitrust issues will examine the proposed combination in the afternoon.
Congress has no authority to stop the merger, but committee appearances often become public forums for lawmakers who oppose or support such plans. The biggest potential threat to the deal right now is public opposition of Rep. James Oberstar, the Minnesota Democrat who chairs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Oberstar, who was largely responsible for grounding hundreds of planes this month by insisting on rigorous FAA inspections, has pledged to press the Justice Department for “vigorous scrutiny” of the plan.