Originally Posted by
ShyGuy
Why did SWA buy AirTran? To gain entrance to ATL, only to downgrade that hub to a focus city status as is the case with SWA cities? To take in a separate fleet type (717) only so they could lease them all out to Delta? Just the addition of a few dozen 737s? Or is it that they wanted to take one more competitor out?
Mark my words, now that the legacy carriers have all merged down to just 3 (AA/DL/UA), the next consolidation will be at the LCC level. Between Virgin, JetBlue, Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant. You will see two of these hook up in a merger. This won't be done for any other reason than necessity to better compete with the legacies.
I honestly don't feel the legacies think of the LCCs as a threat yet. I would think they'd be more afraid of competition from Southwest on a domestic basis than the LCCs.
I think you're right though, I can see consolidations between those five, but my guess would be some sort of Frontier/Allegiant mix, rather than the others. They're all too remarkedly different to really integrate. I wouldn't imagine Virgin, JetBlue, or Spirit would merge with any of the others. Getting bought out could be a different story though, but I would imagine not for a LONG time, not whole they're staying solvent or in the case of JetBlue and Spirit profitable.
ALL of this is just my extremely uneducated guess.