The reason is relevance in MCO and dominance in FLL (read protection from NK/F9 dominating FLL), as well as instantly expanding the network outside of NY/BOS/FL. And getting a ton of planes and orders with people to staff them since B6 is struggling to hire enough fast enough organically for the growth they want.

As for the timing, apparently it’s been looked at for quite some time, but the F9 announcement made them crap or get off the pot. Obviously the timing isn’t ideal given the existing DOJ fight B6 is facing, but they didn’t have much choice in the matter. My guess is they didn’t want to do anything until the NEA matter was settled, but their window of opportunity was closing with the frontier deal. I think the CEO basically said that in his CNBC interview or investor call yesterday (forgot which).