Originally Posted by
turbojet28
They could consolidate, trim any excess/overlap, and gain economy of scale to spread out costs further. They could then rework their growth plans as one instead of as competitors. Certainly the growth would be a bit less as one than each would plan to grow on their own. The fact that the airline would be a much bigger market presence would reenergize many employees and keep them from bailing to legacies. The cost of the actual merger would be far less than other airline mergers - apart from nearly identical fleets, there is a very similar culture, business model, marketing, and customer base. I really don’t know if it will ever happen, but I don’t know why anyone would conclude that it is a far-fetched possibility, especially if market conditions are challenging for any number of reasons.
But what does Spirit's board really gain by merging with Frontier? There are absolute similarities, but Spirit makes so much money, in places Frontier doesn't, what would be the incentive for them to merge over the long term? Or to sell to anyone? I think the only people gaining from that merger would be Frontier. But what would Spirit really gain over the long term? Over the last 1-2 years, Frontier just seems to be playing behind the Spirit playbook. Frontier has very efficient airplanes right now, but they don't have nearly as many NEOs coming in over the next 2 years, as compared to Spirit. Spirit brought back their 319s solely for growth and for slots and to take advantage of the pandemic.
I just don't think Spirit has any real incentive to merge with anyone at the moment. Nor should they, honestly. There is no doubt that Indigo would absolutey love a merge with Spirit, though.