But, they've gone down that road before. It's sorta like a divorce, how often does a husband and wife divorce and then get remarried? Only in the movies.

Now, my analogy is nothing like business, but rarely is there a split and then a regrouping.

Here's some more logic, Indigo is intimately familiar with Spirit's business model, management personnel and finances. They'll know exactly how much Spirit has to purchase their share of Frontier, which obviously Spirit knows Indigo knows this. Spirit has repeatedly and historically done things on the cheap, mergers aren't cheap and Spirit can probably grow more efficiently organically than by purchasing and overhauling another airline.

Its the familiarity of Indigo and Spirit that's driving or giving any credence to a talk of a merger. I can't see a benefit to purchasing Frontier at all. Duplication of many routes, a higher wage workforce (higher than just getting new hires), older aircraft, it goes on and on. The one benefit Frontier has is a brand name and a sense of customer loyalty.

And, I see no way Frontier purchases Spirit.

Now, this is all fun speculation, we're years from either airline having to worry about this I think. I still think Mr. Franks is right though, there will be some consolidation within the industry outside of the big legacies (people tend to forget Alaska and Hawaiian are also legacy airlines). And the consolidation that makes the most sense will probably be the one that doesn't happen.

But, here's some fun pairs:

Allegiant - Sun Country
Alaska - Hawaiian
JetBlue - Virgin America
Spirit - Allegiant
JetBlue - Frontier