Originally Posted by
KC135
So if you have 2 airlines that can't grow and you put them together now they can grow? With that said I could see mngmt trying anything else first besides just paying similar to the airlines in the industry that don't have attrition problems.
The reason this topic comes up is that if DOJ won’t even allow JetBlue/Spirit, there’s no way they’ll allow any of the Big 4 to swallow Frontier or Allegiant, leaving each of those two as the obvious dancing partner for the other. Plus fleet commonality and F9’s stated desire to move to day trips like Allegiant.
The Max order complicates the fleet, but it also solves the pilot retention issue. If a deal happens while aircraft are still in short supply, Allegiant could transfer its Max orders to someone else, leaving Allegiant temporarily overstaffed on flight crew. They could then just naturally shrink down to an appropriate staffing level as folks move on. This would buy them more time to maintain staffing until the pilot shortage is over in a few years.
One potential hangup would be the fact that this would truly leave only one ULCC after Spirit vanishes.