[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 37 (Tuesday, March 20, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Page S2592]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DORGAN:
  S. 578. A bill to prohibit the Secretary of Transportation from 
amending or otherwise modifying the operating certificates of major air 
carriers in connection with a merger or acquisition for a period of 2 
years, and for other purposes; to the Committee on Commerce, Science, 
and Transportation.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am very concerned about the current 
state of affairs in our nation's airline industry. The way airlines 
have remade themselves since deregulation is very troubling to me and 
should be very troubling to most of the traveling public in this 
country.
  Since deregulation we have seen an unprecedented number of mergers in 
the airline industry. What used to be 11 airlines is now 7, and now 
with United wanting to buy US Airways, and American wanting to buy TWA 
out of bankruptcy, there is a very high risk that we will quickly be 
reduced to three mega-carriers in this country. I am afraid of what 
this will mean to competition which is already almost non-existent in 
so many parts of the country.
  That is because the major carriers have spent the last 20 years 
retreating into regional hubs, such as Minneapolis, Denver, and 
Atlanta, where one airline will control 50 percent, 70 percent, 80 
percent of the hub traffic. The result has been that a dominant airline 
controlling the hub traffic sets its own prices, and it is the people 
in sparsely populated areas in the country that end up paying for it 
with outrageously high prices.
  These proposed mergers fly directly in the face of public interest 
and ought not to be allowed. We need more than three airlines. 
Increased consolidation would be moving in the wrong direction. We need 
more competition, not more concentration.
  That is why I am introducing legislation today to place a moratorium 
on airline mergers above a certain size for a couple years so we can 
take a breath and evaluate what kind of air transportation system we 
want in this country.
  I hope my colleagues will join me in expressing loudly that we must 
avoid having this country go to three major airline carriers. It would 
be a step backward, not forward.
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