Spirit Airlines (SAVE) shares plunged Friday morning amid concerns of a potential bankruptcy filing. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg discusses with Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi how Spirit’s potential collapse could impact competition in the airline industry.
Buttigieg emphasizes that competition is a major concern, noting that the airline sector has consolidated tremendously from “dozens of players” over the years. While acknowledging that individual companies may face challenges, he stresses that “the sector and the industry structure” remains a significant concern.
“If an industry has gotten so consolidated that just four companies have a massive proportion of the business, it’s hard to look at that and say that the problem is that the industry is not consolidated enough,” Buttigieg states. “I’m very skeptical of the arguments that say there needs to be less competition so we can somehow have more competition.”
He adds that while regulatory oversight will be handled “case by case”, his goal is to promote more competition in the space.
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This post was written by Angel Smith
