This is SO short-sighted!
You can't have decades of consolidation then stop other smaller airlines from using the same methods of acquiring companies to allow them to compete on the same terms!
@jann ...JetBlue and Spirit are the sixth and seventh largest airlines in North America, respectively. Hardly "smaller".
Besides, "they failed to enforce the law before" is a terrible justification to not enforcing the law now.
@LouisIngenthron That's an opinion. Now try looking at profitability. What good is low prices if the airline goes under providing them?
@jann Making air travel affordable to those who otherwise couldn't afford it seems like a good.
What good is consolidating them, inevitably laying people off and raising prices and closing routes?
@LouisIngenthron Again, what good are lower prices if Spirit hasn't made a profit in over 3 years providing them?
@jann Last I checked, the customers who enjoy the lower fares don't give a shit how much Spirit's stockholders profited.
@LouisIngenthron Again, no profit = out of business. Have you looked at Spirit's debt lately? HUGE! Their debt bonds due in 9/2025 are sitting at 79.25 cents on the dollar!
@jann Right, but JetBlue won't offer the low prices. They'll spend billions, take on this heavy debt, all just to get a fleet that they'll have to heavily retrofit to match their standards (Spirit packs them on tighter than JetBlue). If those assets are valuable enough to spend billions and take on that debt, then they're valuable enough to make money for Spirit, should they have competent leadership.
But more importantly:
If Spirit is left to compete, it *might* fail at some point in the future, at which point customers will lose the lower price point option.
But if Spirit is bought, the industry *will immediately* lose the lower price point option, reducing competition and almost certainly leading to price increases across the board.
So, if you look at it from the shareholders' perspectives, the merger should go through.
But for the rest of the general public, it's much better that it not go through.
@LouisIngenthron BTW: I never said awful and inefficient. I said unprofitable.
@LouisIngenthron
Their FLEET!
Their pilots and crew members...
That fleet matches Jet Blue's. little to no retraining on mechanicals.