Originally Posted by Bluedriver

JB's smallest base is "East" of Orlando? And you want to criticize others for specifics?

Let's take the temperature down a bit. I think we've both said our part at this point. As for commuting to a JB base, I have some thoughts. You are free to read this situation how you want, but I read this acquisition as JB sincerely wanting to expand the airline, expand the brand, be more nationally relevant and compete with the biggest 5-6 passenger airlines. Just before COVID the company sent an email talking about looking at new bases, generally in other parts of the country, so I know that they want more bases. But the company is very cautious about opening new bases because it costs a fortune to close them with our current contract. The B6 MCO E190 base needs to be closed in the next couple of years and they have said it's cost nightmare because when they do something like that it opens up a bidding free for all, which coats money, but also take guys off the flying line as they upgrade/downgrade onto different fleets, and displace other pilots all over the system. And that's a small base (E190 is small in MCO).

Just my opinion, but I don't see them closing bases. They will have a lot of debt to pay off and adding huge expenses and creating pilot inefficiencies at a time when they are already short of pilots isn't a good idea. Speaking of being short on pilots, I think they already recognize that having limited geographic bases hurts pilot attraction/retention.