The European Commission has again given the go-ahead to Fortress Investment Group and Air Investment Valencia (AIV) to merge CityJet and Air Nostrum.
The ruling was issued under the European Union Merger Regulation and will allow Ireland-domiciled CityJet, which is owned by Fortress, a US investment firm, and Spain's Air Nostrum, which is owned by AIV, a Spanish leasing and charter company, to "combine the[ir] activities".
The transaction was first announced in June 2019, with the Commission approving it "unconditionally" the month after, even though the carriers "overlapped in the provision of wet-leasing services to airlines and charter flights".
The Commission said that merger "would raise no competition concerns, because the companies have moderate market shares, a sufficient number of competitors remains on the market and the barriers to entry are low".
The deal was re-notified in January 2023 as it was not executed after its 2019 thumbs-up. The Commission said it had "concluded that the competitive landscape and market conditions remained broadly the same, and that the transaction would still not raise competition concerns".