SEATTLE (AP) — Alaska Airlines closed its $1 billion purchase of Hawaiian Airlines on Wednesday, a day after the federal government removed the last major regulatory obstacle to the deal.
Alaska will also assume about $900 million in Hawaiian debt. Alaska says it will keep Hawaiian as a separate brand, elimiinating the need to repaint planes.
To win approval from the Transportation Department this week, the airlines agreed to maintain current levels of service on key routes within Hawaii and between the island state and the U.S. mainland where they don't face much competition.
Alaska Air Group stock fell 3% Wednesday. The shares are up 2% since the start of the year.
The Justice Department, which had opposed previous deals between large airlines, including JetBlue's attempt to buy Spirit Airlines, has not challenged the Alaska-Hawaiian deal on antitrust grounds.
Alaska and Hawaiian also agreed to a handful of consumer protections, including not lowering value of frequent-flyer rewards as they combine their loyalty programs, and promising to compensate passengers for cancellations and significant delays that are the carriers’ fault.
Seattle-based Alaska Airlines said those conditions were similar to its plans from the time it announced the deal in December.
The deal solidifies Alaska's position as the fifth-largest U.S. airline by revenue.
Alaska Airlines completes its acquisition of Hawaiian Air, which will remain a separate brand
Alaska Airlines completes its acquisition of Hawaiian Air, which will remain a separate brand
FILE - Alaska Airlines planes are shown parked at gates with Mount Rainier in the background on March 1, 2021, at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Less than two weeks before his 100th birthday, former President Jimmy Carter is receiving a lifetime achievement award from the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation, which has set aside its longstanding rule that the winner accept the honor in person.
The Ohio-based foundation announced Thursday that Carter was this year's winner of the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, named for the late diplomat. In 2002, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his human rights advocacy and for brokering such agreements as the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel.
Carter, who turns 100 on Oct. 1, is in hospice care in Plains, Georgia. His grandson, Jason Carter, will accept the prize on his behalf during a November ceremony that will honor the former president’s peace efforts and his authorship of more than 30 books — what the foundation calls “the power of the written word to foster peace, social justice, and global understanding.”
“For the past 17 years, one of the standing requirements to receive the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award was a guaranty that the recipient would appear in person in Dayton, OH for an on-stage interview and an awards ceremony," Nicholas A. Raines, executive director of the Dayton foundation, said in a statement. “This year we have decided to waive that requirement and present the award in absentia, to President Jimmy Carter.”
Jason Carter said in a statement that two of his grandfather's “most enduring interests have been a devotion to literature and a near-constant pursuit of a peaceful resolution to conflict.”
“It is gratifying to have the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation choose to honor my grandfather with the Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award for a lifetime of work melding two of his loves — literature and peace,” Jason Carter added.
On Thursday, the Foundation also announced that Paul Lynch's “Prophet Song” won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction and Victor Luckerson's “Built from the Fire” won for nonfiction.
Lynch and Luckerson each will receive $10,000. Fiction runner-up, “The Postcard” author Anne Berest, and nonfiction finalist, “Red Memory” author Tania Branigan, each get $5,000.
FILE - Egypt's President Anwar Sadat, left, shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin as U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, looks on at Camp David, Md., Sept. 7, 1978. (AP Photo, File)
FILE - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, left, U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin clasp hands on the North lawn of the White House as they completed signing of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in Washington on March, 26, 1979. (AP Photo/Bob Daugherty, File)
FILE - Former President Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday School class at the Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Ga., Aug. 23, 2015. (AP Photo/David Goldman)
