Sent to the UD basket

While my friend's in the bathroom ...

Today I got into a "fewer vs. less" debate regarding the following deck:

"Hawaiian Holdings takes off on news of one less competitor in the sector."

"Less" sounds so very, very wrong to me in this instance, but my colleague disagreed. A different colleague called the WSJ's Page One editor, who saw things as I do. I ended up writing around it, in part because I needed to get the hell out of Dodge, but still.

Unlike some people I know, I'm willing to admit when I'm wrong, and will certainly do so come tomorrow if that's the case.

So fellow DMNers, please tell me how you'd word this.