Delta & WestJet Joint Venture Called Off: What Happened?

Simple. The LGA slots are worth far more than what WestJet would add in benefit for Delta.

Do we think this will be resubmitted under the Biden administration and hope for a different outcome? Similar to how AA/QF did when their transatlantic JV was likely not to get approved under the Obama admin, so they waited until the Trump admin came into office.

They might be planning to sue the DOT over this. I don't practice administrative law, but “arbitrary and capricious” is the legal standard that courts use to review the decisions of administrative agencies like the DOT. So this letter could be a prelude to a lawsuit challenging the conditions imposed on the JV in federal court.

I wonder if the rejection has more to do with:

1) Canada refusing to let Americans fly to Canada even though (despite popular belief) the US border is NOT closed to Canadian tourists as long as they arrive by plane

2) Canada's government clashing with Trump

3) Delta not buying Boeing planes

4) Canada has not bailed out its airlines. It's one of the few big Western countries not to offer financial support. Maybe Delta was willing to drop the proposed joint-venture go because it felt West Jet was on shaky financial footing.

Will this have an impact on the ability to book awards on WestJet using Delta miles?

Maybe this is an unpopular opinion, but does the historical context matter at all here? The fact of the matter is that WestJet is a separate airline despite any proposed JV. Delta wouldn’t be ‘getting back’ slots it gave away years ago. And their letter to the DOT is correct - the eight slots at LGA *are* irrelevant to the JV, and giving them up *would* be against the traveling public’s interest. This makes no sense, and I hope the DOT gets sued over this.

I wonder if this is about Southwest, which has very publicly complained about a lack of access to LaGuardia slots as being anticompetitive.

Delta’s statement strongly hints as much. That is, Southwest would be a serious competitor for the divested slots.

I appreciate the DOT trying to keep the market alive with competition and this seems like a fair balance to me except maybe those slots

United and Air Canada do NOT have a transborder joint venture. They have a transatlantic joint venture alongside the Lufthansa group airlines. Not an apples to apples comparison with the proposed westjet-delta JV.

I hope AA and WestJet get together. This would be a more balanced partnership and give AC/UA a true competitor. WJ should be glad that got out of this after looking how DL treats their other partners during bad time (hey LATAM wish you were back with OneWorld and AA don't you). In the end the mystic and shine everyone has had about DL the past decade is wearing off and just now not nice of a partner or airlines they are is starting to shine through.

You can’t directly compare market share when AC was flying to dozens of mid-market cities that WS/DL don’t serve from Canada.

All of WS/DL’s flights are heavily concentrated at the busiest US airports and/or Delta hubs - so their market share in each of the markets they actually serve is quite significant for them to have a 27% national share between them on so few routes.