Annette Tippetts, office manager of Thomas Travel, is one of 25 people in 10 states who filed a federal lawsuit in San Francisco this month alleging the merger will produce an illegal monopoly that will lead to higher ticket prices and diminished service if regulators OK the deal.
Tippetts declined requests for comment, as did other defendants contacted by The Salt Lake Tribune.
The plaintiffs' attorney, Joseph M. Alioto, said the suit was filed because because federal regulators are the "handmaidens of the monopolists" and can't be counted on to protect passengers.
A Department of Justice spokeswoman also declined to comment.
Published reports have portrayed the plaintiffs as airline passengers, but Alioto said Wednesday that "the majority, if not all, are travel agents [who] see what is coming" if the merger is completed.
Consumers face higher air fares, fewer flights, crowded airplanes, loss of air service to smaller communities and additional fees for services that are normally free, said Alioto.
A merger of Delta, the third-largest U.S. carrier in terms of passengers, and No. 5 Northwest could be a blow to travel agents across the country. While most leisure travelers buy tickets from airline Web sites or other online sellers, much business travel is still handled by agencies. A combination of Delta and Northwest would reduce the number of airlines that travel agencies work with.
The suit isn't Alioto's - or Tippetts' - first scrap with the airline industry. In 2003, Alioto was the lead attorney in a class-action suit that alleged Delta, Northwest and several other airlines were violating antitrust laws by conspiring to eliminate commissions paid to travel agencies and agents. Tippetts and several other agents in the current suit were plaintiffs.
Delta and Northwest say the latest suit, filed June 13 in U.S. District Court for the northern district of California, is frivolous. The merger "is pro-competitive and pro-consumer because the networks of both airlines have little overlap," said Delta spokesman Anthony Black.
"The end-to-end combination of these two carriers, enhances, not diminishes, consumer preference and choice," Black said.
In a letter published Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, Delta chief executive officer Richard Anderson and Douglas Steenland, CEO of Northwest, defended the merger.
Anderson and Steenland said the merger will create a global network of routes with almost no duplication. Revenue generated by the network will allow them to trim frequencies instead of cutting the number of cities the new Delta will serve if rising oil prices force more capacity reductions, they said.
Alioto shrugged off the carriers' suggestion that the suit is unimportant. Last year, Alioto represented a businessman who filed suit against MediaNews Group, which owns The Tribune, and the Hearst Group. The suit was settled, with MediaNews and Hearst agreeing not to collaborate on national advertising, Internet advertising, distribution or production of newspapers they own in the San Francisco area.
In April, Delta and Northwest announced an agreement to merge and create the world's largest airline. The deal is expected to close by the end of this year.
pbeebe@sltrib.com
